01/09/2018

How Mindfulness Helped Me Curb My Smartphone Addiction

Being present is about more than being in the room

I often felt like my iPhone owned me, instead of the other way around. Whether I was eating, reading, riding the bus, you name it, I often had this strong URGE to pick up the phone and do something with it, anything with it. It was usually the first thing I touched in the morning and the last thing I touched at night. My phone had no separation anxiety, but I sure did. I absolutely NEVER left the house without it. It OWNED me and I knew it.

Most everyone I've talked is aware that they are too attached to the phone, but is either not motivated to do anything about it or feel like there's nothing specific they can do other than to "try" and use it less. I was in that boat until recently. What motivated me to change my relationship with my smartphone was the deteriorating relationship with my husband.

It started innocuously enough. One of us would pick up a phone mid-conversation to check a message. Then one of us would have to just do "one" thing on our phone real quickly. Then mid-conversation as we're talking about how bad traffic has been lately, we just had to know what the current population is in the San Francisco bay area. Next thing I knew, we were spending most of our evenings sitting on the couch glued to our phones, just clicking and swiping away, barely talking and connecting. We were settled into this rhythm for months until I started to have this uneasy feeling that we were growing apart.

Please click here to read the complete article from Thrive Global.