WASHINGTON — Do you find that you reach for your phone while waiting in line at the coffee shop? Open an app during the 20-second elevator ride to the office? Or, fall down the Facebook rabbit hole for hours in the evening?
If you’re like most Americans, the answer is yes — even if you don’t realize it. In fact, U.S. consumers spend an average of five hours a day on their phones.
That statistic gave journalist Catherine Price pause. She wasn’t OK losing a quarter of her waking life to her phone, so she decided to break her digital dependency.
“We probably say good morning to our phones before we say good morning to whoever is actually in our bed with us. I mean, they really have come to dominate our lives,” said Price, author of “How to Break Up With Your Phone.”
In her new book, Price shares tips on how to create a better relationship with your phone, and believe it or not, enlisting the help of a few apps can help put an end to mindless mobile use.
For example, a time-tracking app will give you a sense of how much time you’re spending on your phone each day and how many times a day you pick it up.
“Those numbers are really sobering, so I think that’s a good place to start,” said Price, who recommends Moment for iPhone users and Quality Time for Androids.
“I think you’ll discover just how often you reach for it, how often it ends up in your hand without you knowing how it got there.”
After you get an idea of how much time you’re spending on your phone, assess your current phone use and what you want the future to look like.
“What do you want to be doing on your phone? What do you love about it and want to keep about it, because there’s many wonderful things about our phones,” Price said.
“And then, what parts are making you feel bad? So you need to identify what you actually want to work on and then you also need to get back in touch with how you actually want to be spending your life, in general.”
Will your reclaimed time be for reading or learning something new? Perhaps it will be reserved for family and friends?
To stick to your newly outlined intentions, Price recommends setting a few reminders to keep phone use limited. For example, write “What do you want to pay attention to?” on a piece of paper, take a photo of it and set it as your lock screen.
Seeing this will force you to make a conscious decision that you’re going to use your phone before mindlessly typing in your pass code. You can also put a rubber band or hair tie around your phone so there is a physical reminder every time you reach for it.
Getting rid of social media apps is another step to freedom from your phone’s grasp. This doesn’t mean you can’t access Facebook, Instagram or Twitter — just save your social media interactions for the computer browser to avoid unintended binges.
Price said our brains have become so easily distracted and that cutting back on phone use, even a little, will help you gain a sense of control over your time again.
“You really will start to see a difference in your own habits and your own state of mind, where you might find that you’re focused, your ability to concentrate gets better. And you also might find, interestingly, that you just feel more relaxed,” Price said.
“It’s nice to just stare out a window for a minute and let your mind wander, and I think we’ve really forgotten that.”
