Digital Detox

Are You Addicted to Your Smartphone?

Ah, the smartphone. You sneak a peek at your holiday table. Your friends are texting their friends emailing during the meal. Your teen-aged daughter — who barely talks at all anymore — is awake and online with her friends most of the night. Your dog is texting you from the foot of your bed. OK, maybe not, but you get the idea: The whole family is connected — yet hardly connecting at all.

Granted, while some of the time we spend in the digital world on our desktops, laptops, and phones is necessary, much of it isn’t and that’s a problem — one that many of us have! This over-reliance on digital devices is triggering digital addiction (not to mention anxiety, sleep disruption, etc.) in vast numbers of people — and it’s imperative that we find ways to break tech’s grip on our lives.

So, how to regain control? First, recognize that your usage may be a problem, then follow-up with behavioral changes to help put you back in charge of your life, relationships — and devices.

Hey Doc, I’m No Addict

Wanna bet? Nobody likes labels, particularly the ‘addict’ one, but, if the shoe fits (or in this case the smartphone), wear it. Addiction, according to The American Society of Addiction Medicine Addiction, is characterized “by the inability to abstain from a substance, by impairment in behavior, by sensations of craving, by diminished awareness of significant problems with one’s behaviors and interpersonal relationships, and by dysfunctional emotional responses.”

Sound familiar? Thought it might. Even if you’re not a full blown ‘addict,’ just copping to the idea that you’re not fully in control of your usage can start raise your consciousness and prime you to start thinking about making a few changes.

OK, Then Maybe You’re More of a Technoholic

In psychotherapist Nancy Colier’s new book, The Power of Off: The Mindful Way to Stay Sane in a Virtual World, she outlines a number of questions to ask yourself to help determine if you’re in too deep, if in fact you may be a ‘technoholic’:

• Is your reliance on technology increasing?
• Do you experience withdrawal symptoms when not able to use it?
• Are you continuing to use technology despite knowing that it’s causing impairment in your work, health, social and/or family life?
• Is your life increasingly revolving around technology?
• Have you given up activities you used to enjoy so you can use technology instead?
• Are you lying about the extent of your Internet usage?

Answering yes to one or more of these questions is a solid indication that your relationship with technology is unhealthy and you need to start turning things around. Other classic clues? Experiencing cravings, becoming panicky or upset when your phone is mislaid, the battery dies or when you’re asked to turn it off. Feeling lost, agitated or even enraged when access is denied? Then it’s time to unplug.

Practice Makes Perfect

So, how to start loosening tech’s grip? One way is by harnessing the power of ‘mindfulness,’ the practice of paying attention to feelings and thoughts without judgment and an essential tool therapist Colier uses to help treat digital addiction problems.

Practicing the skill of mindfulness enables people to slow down and step out of the digital world more frequently. You learn to make conscious choices and create digital boundaries instead of answering the siren call hundreds of times in a day. Though mindfulness will not prevent cravings, agitation or bad feelings from occurring, Colier says it will make it easier to tolerate the discomfort of being digitally disconnected and not cave into cravings.

Get a (New) Grip

Colier says that gaining freedom from tech addiction happens in four simple steps:

1. Being willing to investigate your human drives and what make you tick.
2. Noticing that you’re behaving in a way you don’t like or doesn’t make you feel good.
3. Making the conscious choice to do or try something different to change your behavior.
4. Practicing the new behavior until it becomes habit.

Put another way, the digital world inspires the terrible 2-year old in all of us, where compulsive ‘I-want-it-all-NOW’ behavior is the unappealing norm and every reaction is virtually the definition of mindlessness. To tame the tech beast, you have to reclaim your mind — with mindfulness.

5 Tips for Your Tech Turnaround

Colier, whose own mindfulness suggests that anyone struggling with the pervasive and invasive influence of technology is a candidate for a digital detox. In The Power of Off, Colier details a 30-day digital detox plan that’s packed with pointers to you get started on a healthier path. To follow are a few smart and simple favorites. Do one a day and by the end of the week, you’ll be on your way to a more digitally balanced life:

1. Refrain from using your devices while waiting in line any kind of a line.
2. Refrain from using while waiting for something to begin, such as a movie, a play, a concert or social interaction
3. Refrain from using during events, for example at concerts, the theater or children’s recitals
4. Refrain from using technology while walking down the street, in a moving car, and declare the restroom a cell-phone free zone.
5. If there is a website that is particularly addictive for you, sign up for Net Nanny or another service that prevents you from accessing it.

5 More Tech Turnaround Tips

Other no-brainer ways to help yourself off the digital merry-go-round? Here are a few things we at Be Well do to help balance the digital scales:

1. Engage in activities that occupy the hands, body and brain, such as rock-climbing, swimming, knitting, reading, etc.
2. Spend more time in places where digital device use is frowned upon, such as group meditation or yoga classes, religious services, etc.
3. Tame compulsive email checking by setting a timer and checking it only when the bell tolls, every hour or so (or longer!).
4. Turn off text alerts for all but a handful of the most essential people in your life.
5. Ask your compulsive texter friends to text only from the hours of 9 am to 8 pm (or whatever works best for you) to ensure their texts don’t interfere with your sleep. And yes, you probably will need to remind them more than once!