223. How To Stop Constantly Checking Your Phone And Overcome Unhealthy Internet and Phone Addiction

[00:00:00] Jeremy: You're probably getting your fix right now. through podcasts. You found us now while we talk to you, you're checking your social media for notifications or updates or checking email again, desperately looking for that electronic dopamine hit to feed your internet addiction.

[00:00:17] Sound familiar? Internet and smartphone addiction is becoming more and more common in our hyper connected world. 

[00:00:22] In this episode, I'll share my own struggles and tips I've learned to help overcome these addictions. by the time we're done, I hope you'll better understand three things. One, the causes and risk factors that make people more susceptible to developing technology addictions.

[00:00:35] Two, , the signs of smartphone and internet addiction so you can decide for yourself if you need to make changes. And three, actionable strategies you can use to start overcoming those addictions now. So. Put your phone away. Let's get started.[00:01:00] 

[00:01:01] 

[00:01:01] Jeremy: All right. Well, Zach is stuck on a train. He couldn't make it to the recording. But hi, I'm Jeremy and I'm an internet addict.

[00:01:18] Hi, Jeremy.

[00:01:19] Jeremy: So yeah, confession time. I don't even know. I must check my phone a hundred times a day, probably more. I've never bothered to download one of those apps that tracks, you know, how many times you actually log in. I know my phone does measure the amount of time that I spend online on the phone, and I know that every time I see that weekly report, I'm horrified at the hours that have gone by.

[00:01:39] Now, granted, like most people, some of those hours are spent working, but if I'm being honest, a lot of them are spent escaping, looking for dopamine, looking for external validation, looking for ways to be anywhere other than where I am right now.

[00:01:53] And that's all at best, right? I mean, there's other times when it's just pure doom, hate scrolling, finding that I'm not living my best [00:02:00] life or living up to everyone else's standards and looking for what's missing from my life, that's the missing ingredient for my own happiness.

[00:02:07] Have I ever found it in the phone? Fuck no.

[00:02:10] but this is something I've been working on for the last few weeks. One of the things I did, it's one of the simplest things you can do, is take a look at those especially social media apps that are designed to make you addicted to that device.

[00:02:22] And decide how much you really need it on your phone. For me, something like Facebook and TikTok, I don't need that to be on my phone. There are updates I want to share, certainly through having a podcast, I want to share, you know, updates about the show, share what we're working on, share ways that you can participate and help, you know, grow a community.

[00:02:39] But do I need to do that on my phone? Or can I be more intentional and set time aside and actually log into my computer and, you know, work on my computer like most people do. So that's something I've done. I've deleted the apps that are not necessary to the function of my job or the function of the way I interact with actual other people that I'm actually connected to in real life.

[00:02:58] And as I'm in the middle of doing [00:03:00] all this for the last few weeks, a new study was done at the University of Surrey in the UK. They were studying internet addiction and found that most users that fit some category of addiction fall into one of five categories. Which one are you? The first is the casual user.

[00:03:17] This is the least addicted group. They tend to be older users who go online moderately, without showing any sort of addictive connection or behaviors their online experience.

[00:03:26] There's your initial user. They go online more than casual users, And they may stay on longer than planned, but they don't really feel anxious or depressed when they disconnect, right? When they go back to the real world. , then there's your experimenters.

[00:03:39] They spend even more time online. They feel nervous or moody when they get offline, which goes away the minute they log back on. Finally, I think I'm about to strike a nerve here with category number four, addicts in denial. They show addictive behaviors like neglecting responsibilities to be online and people complaining about their usage, but they don't admit to feeling [00:04:00] anxious or having any sort of depression when they disconnect.

[00:04:02] And of course, there's the full blown addict, the most addicted group. They spend excessive amounts of time online. They report adverse effects on their lives. They admit to feeling anxious, depressed when they're not online. And they tend to be younger, digital native users.

[00:04:16] Meaning people that have been basically online since they were born.

[00:04:19] Something that wasn't an option for us Gen Xers.

[00:04:22] And this raises concerns as well, right? I've got, I've got a tween daughter. She's 12 and she's been begging for a phone for two years. When's the right time, right? Like all the apps say you're not supposed to have an account until you're 14. I don't even want my 14 year old on Facebook. I don't want them on this stuff because it is so addictive.

[00:04:38] And when you are drawn to an addiction like that, you are escaping from the things that bring real joy and real happiness to your life. So I'm trying to delay that for my kids as much as possible. But when every kid in schools got one and everyone they know has got one. It's tougher and tougher to win the fight of no, it's not worth it when they just feel like an outcast and they feel like they don't [00:05:00] fit in.

[00:05:00] And is that the most important thing? No, but it is important. If you've been in middle school, if you spend any time there, you know, that fitting in does matter when you're that age, but I digress.

[00:05:11] So, like I said, I think I'm somewhere in the either full blown addict or the, , addict in denial. I'm somewhere in there because. I do, uh, my phone is always on me if it's not nearby, I got to know where it is all the time. I can't tell you how many times I open it up for no reason. I, I'm not super active on Facebook, right? As a show, we are, I post all kinds of stuff about the podcast so that people are aware of what we're talking about, the conversations we're having.

[00:05:38] You know, resources we're offering to help people, things like that. But as a person, like I'm not posting, you know, pictures of my family. I'm not posting pictures of my life for the most part. And looking for people to respond and, and, you know, pat me on the back for some, for some photo I took at the park or whatever, but there I am.

[00:05:56] I pick it up and I look no notifications. Cool. Let's check another [00:06:00] app. No notifications. Cool. Let's check another, like I'm not even posting anything. What am I looking for a reaction to? But I do it. I go through the whole cycle and then oftentimes I'll feel like, well, maybe something's happened since I checked that first one, I'll go back through the loop.

[00:06:13] It's a sickness. It's so ridiculous. I check email constantly and I don't get a ton of email. So it's not like I have just this massive demand that I have to be logging in to respond to, and yet the addiction, the, the desire to log in for that one possible little red notification. That one message that might have come in, something that feeds that need I have for validation from the outside world,

[00:06:40] drives me back to the phone over and over and over again. And don't get me started on the end of the day when I'm tired, right? Like I've worked all day, I've walked the dogs, I've done all the things, and I just, I have nothing left. It is so easy to just like escape time, right? Let's just go doom scroll and look at all the wonderful lives.

[00:06:59] [00:07:00] Everyone's living. Let's look at all the self help tools. I'm not using and the nine ways that I could change my life overnight. If I just devoted 14 hours to each one of them every morning, I mean, all that stuff. I am drawn to it and I have to look at it over and over again, which is why I'm working so hard on putting it down and deleting and getting away from all these apps because it's just too much and it is interfering with.

[00:07:23] My life, when my wife is asking me repeatedly, what are you doing? Why are you online? Are you working? Not in a judgmental way, but just wondering what I'm doing. And most of the time, it's nothing. I'm just escaping. And that's not healthy.

[00:07:36] So if you're like me, and you get anxious when you haven't looked at your phone in four seconds, or you lose track of time when you do log in because you're so lost in whatever you're doing, or you are neglecting your family or other real world responsibilities, And you continue using the phone or, or the internet in whatever way, despite all those negative impacts, it might be time to make a change.

[00:07:56] So what do you do?

[00:07:57] Well, first, like any good addiction program will tell you, [00:08:00] you have to start by recognizing that you have a problem and commit to changing it.

[00:08:04] If you've ever been to any sort of an Al Anon or Alateen or AA meeting, they'll, they'll, they'll all start that, start with that. You have to understand that this is a problem. This isn't just some little thing. It is interfering with the productivity and happiness of your life.

[00:08:18] So some simple things that you can do to try to keep this at bay. One, like I said, delete those apps. If you don't absolutely need them, if they are not a function of your job or, or somehow your life cannot go on without that app. Despite just that feeling deleted, it doesn't need to be there. You can log in at an appropriate time that you put on your calendar that that's what that time is for.

[00:08:37] Another tip that I don't do a good enough job of is creating tech free zones at home, right? The living room should maybe not be the place where phones are allowed. If you're in the family room and you guys watch TV together. Yeah, you're still having a screen, you know, experience. But if it's a shared moment with your family, where you're all enjoying a story together, that's different than everyone just disappearing into that toxic wasteland of [00:09:00] social media.

[00:09:01] So find a space in your home that is, that is tech free. The kitchen table, absolutely not. Living room, absolutely not. Bedroom, absolutely not. I mean, these are spaces that should be for sleeping, for family engagement, for eating together. They are not places to be looking at the latest photos on Instagram.

[00:09:17] In addition to that, maybe you need a better distraction. Maybe, you know, you're listening to a self help podcast, right? You're listening to the self development show.

[00:09:24] So some kind of self care might be a better alternative to staring at your phone, go for a walk, go for a run, go to the float tank place down the street. Whatever you're into that, that lights you up, that replenishes you, that fills your cup, spend the time you would be spending on your phone, taking care of yourself.

[00:09:42] Because odds are, that's the connection that you're missing anyways. You're trying to feel better about yourself. You're trying to feel good in your own skin. And the phone is never going to provide that for you.

[00:09:50] And then finally, of course, like any addiction, sometimes it requires more than you can just stop. Sometimes it's more than willpower. Sometimes you need [00:10:00] help. You need support from friends, from family, support groups. are internet addiction recovery centers around the country. We'll link to one I know of in Seattle, they will have resources to others as well.

[00:10:09] That's in the show notes for this episode.

[00:10:11] But sometimes addiction is more than a matter of just stopping, just going cold turkey, especially in such a hyper connected world like the one that we live in,

[00:10:21] So please seek help if you feel like that's something you need.

[00:10:24] All right, so I'm going to get off my soapbox in a minute, but just sort of wrap all of this up in a pretty bow for you.

[00:10:29] Some key takeaways from the study I referenced. One is that internet addiction comes in varying degrees. It's not just that you're addicted or not. You can be a little addicted. You can be a lot addicted. Deciding where you are in that spectrum is going to be up to you, but becoming aware of it and recognizing if it in fact is a problem for you will help get you on the path to doing something about it.

[00:10:49] And according to this study, this is something that largely affects younger people. So maybe this isn't you, but maybe this is your kids. Maybe this is your friends kids. Maybe this is your nieces and your nephews. Younger people that are [00:11:00] exposed to the internet at a young age become much more dependent and much more addicted to it, according to this study.

[00:11:06] So,

[00:11:07] if you do have any say, if you do have any control over how much those young people in your life Are spending time on the internet, not doing something productive, not doing their homework, not doing the things they need to be doing, communicating with loved ones, whatever, try to step in, try to limit that stuff to help prevent this from becoming a bigger problem for them down the road.

[00:11:24] And like I said, some of the simple ways to do that, create those tech free zones, maybe time limits where at a certain time of day, everybody puts the phone in a box and it's put away and nobody touches it again until the morning. Certainly don't sleep with it next to your bed. Like I do, because that is also just a terrible habit to break.

[00:11:38] Lots of ways to, to simply keep the phone and keep the internet out of your life when you don't need it there. But sometimes they're not enough, and that's when I would urge you to seek help from a professional, whether it is a resource center, an internet addiction recovery center, a therapist, friends, family.

[00:11:55] If it is , severely negatively impacting your life, it may be something you need to [00:12:00] get help with.

[00:12:00] All right, well, that's going to do it for this episode of The Fit Mess. Zach will return for the next episode. But I hope this has been helpful either for you or perhaps you know somebody who is struggling with this. And maybe this episode would be helpful for them. Share this episode with them. Maybe this is just enough to get them to move the needle and try to find some way to put the damn phone down and plug back into reality so that they can have a slightly happier, healthier life than the one that they're desperately trying to find by staring at that screen for hours a day, helping spread the word to them helps us have a greater impact on the people that need this kind of advice.

[00:12:32] So we really appreciate you doing that.

[00:12:34] Meanwhile, we'll link some of the resources we mentioned . You'll find them in the show notes for this episode. Those are at thefitmess. com. And that's where Zach and I will be back with a new episode in just a few days. Again, at thefitmess. com. Thanks for listening.

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