“Raising awareness of one’s own smartphone use can be the first step in the right direction of decreasing smartphone use,” says Dr Daria Kuss from Nottingham Trent University. That doesn’t surprise psychologists studying problematic smartphone usage. In my case, this data led to action: I actively tried to pick up my smartphone less. Space’s notifications are more prods, from “Hey Stu, is it time for a break?” to “Oh, it’s you again. “Boom! 2H 33M break from your phone! Digital detox goal smashed!” pings Mute, with suitably cheery emoji. Two weeks in to testing them, I know that I average 52 unlocks per day and up to two hours of usage. Norwegian app Hold even tries to incentivise its student users by offering points for reducing their smartphone habit, which they can exchange for snacks and cinema tickets. I was so distracted by my phone, I wasn’t present with her!” It’s one of several apps – Space and Moment are others – that track how often you unlock your phone and how much time you spend using it, in order to help you reduce your time on it.įor Space CEO Georgie Powell, “the wake-up moment for me was when I was breastfeeding my daughter while looking at photos of her on my phone. Kuh is trying to make amends: his latest app is called Mute, and launched for iPhone this month (free). I’ve worked on apps like that myself, and it’s not something I’m proud of.” “It’s so powerful to be truly bored: nothing in your head, so you can daydream. According to British apps developer Nick Kuh: “A lot of these companies are employing behavioural psychologists to really nail that: finding ways to draw you back in. Often, the apps themselves aren’t helping: from games to social networks, they’re precision engineered to create and feed our interaction neediness.
“Particularly when anxiety and insomnia’s there, it’s rare that it’s not related in some way to heavy use of digital devices.” “It’s not necessarily the top thing when my clients come in, but it’s often in the mix, tied in with anxiety or insomnia or relationship issues,” says psychotherapist Hilda Burke, a spokesperson for National Unplugging Day in 20.
0 kommentar(er)
