How Much Time Are You Spending On Your Mobile Phone?

Thanks to Diane Sawyer, we learned that 49 days (on average) of our life, each year spent on our mobile phones.  

To put that in a different perspective:

• That's 1,176 hours of phone use per year
• That's 70,560 minutes of phone use per year
• That's 4,233,600 seconds of phone use per year

We don't know about you but that seems a bit high...at first

Whether your playing Trivia Crack or Solitaire, checking the scores of your favorite sport team during playoffs, watching YouTube videos on how to fix your water heater, updating your Calendar with upcoming events you don't want to forget, checking to see what's trending on Twitter, adding a new photo to your Instagram account, seeing who sent you Snapchats and sending one back, shopping on Amazon, or even scrolling through Facebook to see what people are up to; the time spent doing any of these (or lets be honest, all of these) really does add up.  

Did you also know that we pick up our phones about 80 times a day (again, on average)? 
Maybe to answer phone call, send a text, or any of the other reasons above.

Here's something to think about:

• Adults (26-64) should be getting 7-9 hours of sleep
• There's 24 hours in a day and if 8 of them are spent sleeping then the other 16 are spent awake and active
• If we pick up our phones 80 times a day and there's 16 "active" hours (on average) we will pick up our phones 12 times per hour, per day.
• If we pick up our phone 12 times per hour, at 80 times a day, we're averaging picking up our phone every 5 minutes to do something on it

While this may not apply to everyone, a good way to track your screen time is to simply turn on your screen time tracker (for Apple Users) or download a third party app to track your phone usage for other users like Androids.

So now the question becomes "How do I stop being on my phone so much?":

1. Keep Yourself On a Schedule
   • The most basic step that Rosen suggests for weaning yourself off your phone is literally setting alarms specifying how often you can check it. Start with every 15 minutes, then move to every half hour, every 45 minutes, or every hour. When your alarm sounds, spend one minute going through any and all notifications and then reset the timer.
2. Turn Off As Many Push Notifications As Possible
   • An incredibly simple way to cut down on distractions is to turn off push notifications for as many apps as you can
3. Take Distracting Apps Off Your Home Screen
   • Keep the apps that you want to encourage yourself to use — like those for reading or learning a new language — front and center, but banish anything that you want to limit your time with to folders on your second page of apps
4. Kick Your Device Out Of Bed
   • By using a regular alarm clock and charging your phone out of reach, you won’t be tempted to start your day by getting vortexed into an avalanche of messages and updates
5. If You Have A Smart Speaker, Put It To Use
   • One of the most valuable things about smart speakers such as the Amazon Echo or Google’s Home products is that they help you live a more screen-free life.  By using a smart speaker for as many things as possible, keeps your smartphone out of your hands for longer periods.
6. Try Turning On Your Phone's Grayscale
   • One of the most jarring ways to curb the time you spend on your smartphone is to make its screen much less desirable to look at.  You can turn on grayscale by digging around in the “Accessibility” category of your phone’s settings. On an iPhone, find “Display Accommodations” and then turn on “Color Filters.” On a Samsung device, find “Vision” and then scroll down to “Grayscale.”
7. Stay Accountable
   • Want to judge your progress?  Consider installing an app that tracks your smartphone habits, like QualityTime or Moment, so that you can set a specific usage goal and see how well you stick to it.

We don't know about you but we're going to be trying a few of these tips to try and stay off our phones and doing other productive things!

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Resources:
https://thetechjournal.com/electronics/mobile/check-screen-time-android.xhtml
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/03/how-to-curb-you-smartphone-addiction-in-2018.html