A long time ago, longer than I dare admit, I had a problem with a colleague we’ll call Rod. His wife said in the kitchen [we were working from his home] ‘you will get on with Rod a lot better if you don’t text him so much’. The phone I was using was a Nokia ‘burner’, my daughter once commenting how fast I could send messages.
What I didn’t realise was this was the start of phone addiction – a problem that has probably damaged many relationships over the years.
Recently a good friend asked me ‘Why did you message me so much the other day? Maybe you should look at that.’ Deep down I already knew the problem. A shiver went up my spine.
I came across a book on Spotify – ‘Un-addicted’ that explained that siblings of addicts [I don’t like that name – it has all the wrong connotations] have a 40-60% chance of inheriting what is called ‘addictive substance disorder’. 60%?! My dad was an addict and his addiction killed him. Addiction is not a choice people make – Nzinga explains ‘Contrary to popular belief, addiction isn’t a conscious choice. It’s a chronic illness, like diabetes or asthma, that responds to treatment and deserves compassion. And yet, too many people expect their loved ones to simply recover on their own without interventions.’
So, sons and daughters of people with addictive substance disorder have a 60% chance of the same problem without their choice? Nzinga Harrison, Dr and author of the book, explains that not only do you potentially inherit this illness, but your environment is also a major factor on triggering the problem or making it worse.
I live on my own. It did not take me too long to work out that the dopamine you normally get from being in a house with family and friends, something I did not have, I had been getting dopamine from using my phone instead.
Anyway, to cut a long story short, I put software on my phone to help limit its use. ‘Minimalist Phone Launcher’. It effectively makes your phone less attractive and more awkward to use, removing colourful icons and notifications. When I went into any app, it asked me if I really wanted to use it. At that point you can exit.
But this software, whilst useful, was not enough for me. I found myself working around it. I needed something more aggressive. Inspired by Nzinga saying ‘you should be able to get your use of anything down 50% in a couple of weeks – if you can’t you need professional help] [sic], I turned on an App Blocker. [This software was already on my phone and cost nothing.]
Here I could set how long I wanted to spend on these apps, in advance. Once the time was used up, not only did the app stop working but the access icon disappeared until the following day. Perfect!
After three weeks of monitoring – it turned out the guilty app was WhatsApp. All that pinging and ‘typing’ and ticks, they are addictive! Did you realise? I was most certainly addicted to the use of this App. I could see it clearly in the time I was spending on it. I was oft frustrated at how many photos it put in my gallery most of which were crap. And that I think is the point. Most of this stuff is irrelevant, not only to you but the people you send it to! I was spending a whopping 16 hours a week on it! An entire full working day after sleep! A whole day! And I did not know!!! Madness.
No wonder my friend was frustrated if she was getting a lot of these messages! I had no idea it was that bad. And thank goodness she mentioned this to me.
Two weeks later, I had slashed messaging on my phone by more than 50%. I reduced my entire time on my phone by 27%. More important I now felt empowered to take this further. My aim was to reduce all messaging to 30 minutes a day and only use WhatsApp for sending essential media. To be honest I can see a point in the not-too-distant future where I remove WhatsApp from my phone. Maybe I will do it right now? If I need to send any important media, I can e-mail it.
When Gazza quit alcohol apparently, he started eating too much chocolate [and Calpol, which crazily has 1% alcohol in it! Giving kids alcohol? Madness!]
I noted that when I quit booze, I started drinking more coffee [and putting sugar in it, something I never did before]. Nzinga says addictive behaviour can sneak into other areas of your life. And that it is good to create new healthier habits.
Rather than becoming depressed about thinking how much of my life I have wasted staring at my phone, I did something positive. I bought myself a set of drums. Maybe I could create a healthy new habit. One that the neighbours might help me keep in check?! Could playing the drums for 20 minutes a day replace the dopamine I was getting from being on my phone?
On the day I picked them up, I played them for over an hour! That was an hour I was not on my phone or watching TV [actually, I don’t have a TV]. It felt fantastic playing those drums to my favourite songs, realising how incredible some of those drummers are as I failed to copy them!
Un-addicted link https://open.spotify.com/show/5FX8FZZhOVJUpkXDwn2NDE
