Sick of the minicomputer in your pocket ruling your life? It might be time for a smartphone detox. If you’ve ever hungered for simpler times or wondered what life would be like without a phone as your constant companion, now is your chance to find out.
12 Signs That You Could Probably Benefit From A Phone Detox
- You can’t remember the last time you went a whole day without checking your device
- You feel disconnected from your friends and family in real life, but you are up to date on all the latest virtual happenings
- You hold your phone in your hand for most of the day and compulsively check notifications
- The people closest to you often have to repeat themselves because you are usually engrossed with something on your smartphone when they speak
- You panic if you misplace your phone and never leave the house without it
- You experience the illusive feeling of “phantom phone” often
- You sleep with your phone and wake up itching to scroll on social media
- Your phone gets the best of your time, energy, and attention
- You feel agitated or angry if your family interrupts your tech usage
- You feel like you are on tech overload and behind on daily tasks
- Virtual reality appeals to you more than actual reality
- Your screen time report scares you
Choose a mix of any or all suggestions from the list below. Feel free to add in your own unique spin and restrictions. Grab a couple friends and family members to do this digital detox with you!
30 Day Phone Detox Challenge:
Eliminate all social media apps
Turn off all notifications
Pause virtual subscriptions
Cancel streaming services
Delete gaming apps
Block online shopping sites
Log out of your email
Power down your smartphone
Lock your device away or give it to a friend for safekeeping
Use a flip phone, prepaid phone, or no phone for 30 days
Cancel your cellphone data plan for one month
Turn off your smartphone’s Wi-Fi connection
Don’t replace your smartphone time with time on similar device
Grab the free printable Phone Detox Goals sheet to identify your problem areas, hash out a plan, and set yourself up for digital detoxing success!
5 Tips For A Successful Phone Detox
Now you know what to do, but here’s the how. I’ve got 5 simple tips for reducing screen time and setting yourself up for success while digital detoxing.
I would argue that the success of a screen detox is based on the decision to do it, the preparation you do ahead of time, and the willpower to follow through. Willpower won’t get you very far though, if you don’t remove temptations and make a plan in advance.
I believe that the prep for a technology detox is eighty percent of the equation. The person who plans ahead of time and knows how she is going to get through her time offline is far more likely to succeed than the person who desperately wants to stop scrolling but puts no forethought into the logistics of how to make that happen.
The first key to a successful phone detox is to identify the ways you use your device the most. Ditch the unhealthy ways for the duration of your phone detox challenge, but think of ways to replace your most used electronic resources before your digital detoxing begins.
Decide How You Will Keep In Touch With Humans
Will you get a prepaid flip phone to make necessary calls?
Will you host a weekly game night?
Will you stock up on stationary and stamps to surprise your loved ones with thoughtful letters?
Will you carve out thirty minutes to talk with your spouse while you prepare dinner together after work?
Will you set up weekly playdates with moms in a similar season of life as you?
Will you catch up with your people at the weekly church community group?
However you do it, be sure to make a plan for how to connect with the people you most often text on your phone.
One helpful thing about a smartphone detox is that you will see who your true community is. It isn’t the account you follow the most often on social media, the people whose videos you consistently watch online, or the social media acquaintances who most often “like” your posts.
Your tribe consists of the people who know where to check up on you in person, miss your voice on the phone, and make a point to connect with you despite the digital barriers. Let those people know ahead of time that you plan to be off of your smartphone for a certain length of time. Get dinners on the calendar and outings planned to look forward to with your closest of friends. Consider even sending them this blog post and inviting them to do a tech detox with you!
Come Up With Things To Do With Your Hands
Have you ever experienced “phantom phone”? You think you hear a notification sound when there is none. You imagine you feel a phone buzzing in your pocket though it did not. Many of us have so utterly overused technology that we feel the need to check our smartphone even when it hasn’t beckoned us.
If you are used to scrolling on a device for much of your day, decide in advance how you replace this habit. We were made to work with our hands. It’s natural to want to do something with them.
Here are three easy things you can do with your hands besides engage a smartphone:
- Get down and dirty in the garden. Pull weeds, shovel dirt, plant veggies, and harvest berries. Tickle your senses with the input of natural light, grass on your toes, dirt on your hands, and real fruit you can taste off the vine. Replace the overstimulation of a dinging device that emanates blue light with the natural stimulation of the great outdoors.
- Pet your animals. This one is super simple, but how many times have we propped open our laptop to gaze while our dogs sat at our feet wanting a little attention? Consider replacing phone time with investment in your household pet. Rub them, take them on walks, play fetch, and race them up and down the yard.
- Get into handicrafts. Learn to do something useful with your hands such as drawing, knitting, crocheting, embroidery, jewelry making, painting, sewing, or woodworking. This stuff is not just for homeschooled kids. Simple handicrafts can fill the time you used to spent scrolling in a very lifegiving way. When you do a craft, you have to exercise patience and practice delayed gratification skills (something a generation oversaturated in technology has forgotten how to do). Unlike scrolling which provides instant stimulation but leaves you feeling empty, handicrafts satisfy the soul. You get to slowly work toward something beautiful with your hands and enjoy the result of your labor in the end.
Ask For Accountability
Sometimes when something becomes a huge problem in our life, the first step is humility. To go to your spouse or a trusted friend and admit that you waste hours upon hours on your smartphone every day is embarrassing, but chances are these people already know. Not only that, but they love you and they can relate. We all live in the digital age. Most people struggle with technology overuse. So before your screen detox begins, let someone know what you are doing and ask them to hold you accountable in whichever way would work best for you.
It might be asking your husband to shut down the internet from the router or keep your smartphone in his car for a month. It might be asking him to gently remind you of your goals if he sees you reverting back to old patterns with technology during your phone detox challenge. It might be meeting a friend for a weekly walk and asking her to check in with how you’re doing and where you’re struggling.
What you ask for isn’t the most important part, the fact that you ask is. Be vulnerable with someone you can trust and ask them to support you through digital detoxing.
Plan How You Will Get Places
Borrow, buy, or grab a used GPS for your car if you typically turn to your smartphone for directions as you drive. I’ve had an old-school plug in GPS that has lasted more than a decade. I personally don’t need to use it very often, but when I do she loads up just fine and I am able to easily type in an address and choose preferences about the route.
The cool thing about a detached GPS is that it has one singular purpose. It isn’t linked up to a smartphone that also has text message, social media, video apps, gaming apps, email, calendar, online shopping, and other various means to distract you when all you need is to get from point a to point b.
Of course you can also use a map or hand written direction you got from a friend beforehand. Without a smartphone, you will be sacrificing the ability to view and anticipate traffic on a continually updated app, but this is a very small sacrifice to make in return for the refreshment you will gain from digital detoxing.
Decide How You Will Handle Weakness
Personally, I tend to be a very all or nothing person. If I have some ice cream at a birthday party when I was three weeks into a sugar free diet, why not eat the entire tub? It’s all over anyway, right? Wrong.
One mistake or slip up does not make your entire smartphone detox null and void. If you fall down, get back up again and keep going. Learn from your weakness and remove the temptation. Also, consider the root issue. What caused you to break your screen fast?
Were you feeling lonely so you decided to hop on social media and then wound up scrolling for hours? This probably means you haven’t been connecting enough with humans in real life. Get a lunch with friends on the calendar, write your grandmother a letter, and plug into whatever your local bible believing church as to offer.
Were you hopelessly bored so you pulled up your old streaming services and binge watched a crime show that reignited familiar old anxieties? First of all, cancel the streaming services. But second, find something else to do in your spare time. Sign up for an adult karate class, grab a 200 piece puzzle at the store, try your hand at a recipe in a library book. Fill your leisure time with screen free activities from this point forward.
Are you having trouble with your evening routine because you used to scroll before bed? If you used your smartphone to decompress (even though it wasn’t truly helping you unwind) you will need new bedtime habits. Try exercising, bathing, reading, or completing a word search before bed instead of turning to your phone for comfort.
Need more ideas? This post is full of alternatives to screen time for adults: