This is part two of a three part series of articles discussing digital addiction. Click here to read the first article and tune in later this month for the conclusion of this series.
Previously I wrote about recognizing screen addiction and how it manifests in your daily life. One thing to start with is to bring awareness of the role our phones/screens play in our everyday life.
There are a few things you can try to bring awareness to your addiction:
Turn your black and white filter on for your phone screen. This will help you feel less drawn to your phone and increase the awareness of how addictive your full color phone screen can be. Because of this you’ll experience the urge to turn the color filter back on. Notice the urge and how often it happens.
Try a digital awareness app such as RealizeD to track how often you are picking up your phone and how many hours you tend to be on your apps.
Take a digital vacation. Ideally for a long weekend. Set intentional rules like: no internet, limited phone and text. Put the phone in the trunk and bring a book or a journal instead. Distract yourself by trying new foods, going for a hike, a swim, a bike ride, a frolic around town with a friend. Do crafts. Remember all that life stuff? Notice the urges for the screen during these activities. Pay attention to the difference on day three as compared to day one. Journal about it.
The struggle to regulate our screen use is real and our recovery from its effects is somewhat new territory. Ideally we want to keep the screen time we value and minimize what is hurting us. Awareness is a good place to start.
In the third part of this series of articles, I’ll share some resources to help you take some action steps. These steps should help you gain more awareness and spark ideas to moderate digital use.
Lisa Coppola, LMHC is a licensed psychotherapist who brings many years of clinical and community experience to sessions through her work in the field of mental health and dual diagnosis. She strongly believes in the strength and change that comes from getting in deeper touch with our creativity, exploring the authenticity within ourselves, and investigating the narratives that culture may have imposed onto us collectively and as individuals.
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