Let’s Unplug: ALLOWING A PHONE CLEANSE TO GIVE YOU A FRESH START
Without hesitation, the very first thing that many of us do when we wake up is check our phones. Whether you gravitate to Gmail, Tik Tok, or the Weather app, we have become wired to ‘plug in’ the second that we open our eyes. In essence, we start off our days, weeks, and eventually our lives, with being connected to an online world. Like a ripple effect, we mindlessly scroll, scroll, scroll, without paying attention to the large sum of time we actually spend doing this... Every day.
Science has proven that a short, 7-day detox from your phone may make the world of a difference. Our phones give us a sense of instant gratification. This could be from receiving a ‘Like’ on social media, sending text messages to your friends, or simply seeing how many notifications you have from the time you went to bed, to the eight hours later that you start your day. It’s a vicious cycle, and one that’s hard to break.
Check Your Screen Time
To put things into perspective, I read an article just a few weeks ago on how most of us are not aware of how much time we actually spend on our devices, or what we’re doing on them. If you are an Apple user, go into the Settings section of your phone and under ‘Screen Time’, you can see a daily average of how many hours and minutes are spent using your phone, and on which apps. As of September 2021, the average iPhone user spent 5 hours and 42 minutes a day on their device. That equates to over an entire work week for the average adult.
Using a Digital Detox as a Mood Booster
You think you’re ready to start your detox, but the thoughts of “I’ll be so bored” and “What will I do?” linger. Truth be told, when you first start your phone cleanse, you may feel those things. When using your phone for 5+ hours a day becomes part of your routine, unplugging can at first seem like an alternate reality. But disconnecting for a short period of time will allow you to live in the world with zero distraction– subsequently, allowing us to take better control of our time, have less distractions in social interaction, and be more productive in everyday life.
What Else to Consider? Radiation, EMF, Low Attention Span
Going beyond just time, extensive research shows that our phones produce levels of radiation that contribute towards the development of disease and serious health problems. The EMF, or electromagnetic fields, produced by these devices are seen as possibly carcinogenic to humans. Yes, your phone is producing chemicals that could be damaging to your health. Most of us do not even “power off” our device when we sleep, or sleep with it under our pillow so it’s more convenient for us to grab. Put that into perspective. This constant connectivity can actually provide us with a source of stress. When using our phones, we are constantly waiting for something, and oftentimes, things like social media are contributing more towards anxiety, pressures, and lowering our self-esteem, than they are our happiness.
The Bottom Line…
This is not a lecture on why you should never use your phone again. More or less, a reminder that our lives have become so centered around an artificial, online world, we tend to miss out on so many amazing things in the real world. You can set time limits on your apps, put your phone on “Do Not Disturb”, but the real tell-all will lie in completely disconnecting, noticing the difference you feel and how you may look at the world from a different lens. If you have never had a week away from your phone, now could be the perfect time.