12 Ways To Manage Your Phone Addiction When You’re Out With Friends
There is a single item that will completely stop your phone addiction when you’re out with friends. You will never guess what it is, so read on.
People often tend to use their phones absentmindedly while they are out with friends.
While this habit is acceptable in minimal amounts, excessive use of cell phones while in the company of other people is never a good habit.
In fact, it can make the others feel that you do not care about the time that you are spending with them.
If you are addicted to your cell phone, chances are that you would be using your device excessively while in the company of other people.
Always remember that the time spent with friends is extremely valuable, because all you will be left with afterwards is memories.
Now, it is completely up to you whether you want to make those moment memorable or barely even remember the events since you were so busy using your cell phone.
Here are 12 ways in which you can manage your phone addiction while you are in the company of your friends:
Contents
1. Turn Your Phone Off
Easier said than done, this is seemingly a simple strategy that can be used.
People who are addicted to their cell phones would not even think of turning their mobile devices off.
However, if you are committed to making sure that you give the people around you their due attention and keep your cell phone away, you might as well switch it off for the duration that you are with them.
Turning your mobile phone off means that you would not be bothered with any notifications, messages, or calls, and would most likely not even experience phantom vibrations.
You can then leave your phone on the table, in your bag, or in your pocket and have fun chatting away with friends and being present in the real moment.
2. Keep Your Phone Somewhere You Cannot Dig For It/ Keep It Out Of Your Sight
This is another easy technique that could work for you in case you are addicted to your phone. Leave your phone somewhere that will make it hard for you to find it later.
For instance, girls normally tend to have a lot of things in their handbags, and if they leave their cell phones in their handbags, they might have a tough time looking for it whenever they feel the need to use their cell phones again.
You can even give your phone to your friends so that they can keep it in a special hiding spot where you would not be able to get access to it.
Once it becomes hard to find your cell phone, you eventually stop looking for it and let it be wherever it is, and slowly and gradually, the urge to use it dies down as well.
Very soon, you will find yourself interacting with your friends and would have completely forgotten about your cell phone.
3. Pay Attention To What Your Conversations Are About And Take Part In Them Without Getting Distracted
Be present in the moment 100% without being distracted by your cell phone.
Make sure that you take part in the conversations that are happening around you instead of focusing too much attention or constantly thinking about your phone.
Real memories and learning happens with concrete relationships that exist outside of the virtual world. If you are too focused on your phones, you might as well not be present at your gathering at all.
There is no point in being some place physically while your mind is elsewhere.
If you miss out on important conversations, you will miss out on them for life, and before you know it, life will pass you by while you stare at the screen of your phone.
4. Seek Help From Your Friends
If you are facing a lot of trouble with your cell phone, seek help from your friends. After all, what are friends for, right?
You can let them know that you are worried that you will be on your phone constantly through the evening and that you need help keeping your phone away.
They can then help you come up with strategies into doing so. In some of the cases, they might even tell you when they think that you are using your phone a little too much, or they might just take it away from you for a little while.
You can even tell your friends not to use their cell phones in front of you since it might lead to a temptation to use yours.
When you see people all around you using their phones often, you automatically cannot resist, and this would lead you to search for yours, either consciously or subconsciously.
Once you see that no other friend is on their phones, there will be greater interaction amongst people and you will automatically want to stay away from your phone as well.
5. Pay Attention To Everything Around You And Practice Mindfulness
No matter where you are, it is important that you pay attention to your surroundings.
Make concrete efforts into maintaining all your concentration on whatever is happening around you, including your friends.
Practicing mindfulness is a great technique that you can use as it teaches you to be in the present moment and feel everything that is going on around you deeply.
The technique of mindfulness will especially be useful in making sure that you do not remain addicted to your phone and in fact enjoy your actual current life.
6. Leave Your Phone At Home If Possible
If it is possible for you, you can always leave your phone at home. In most of the cases, you do not even need your phone while you are hanging out with your friends.
If you leave your phone at home, you will have no reason whatsoever to be distracted by it, and you can easily concentrate and focus on what your friends have to say as well as give in your valuable input.
While leaving your phone at home can be a hard thing to do, it is not impossible. In case of any emergency, you can always give your family and relatives a friend’s number so that they can reach you.
If you hang out at a bar, a restaurant, or a similar place, you can give people the phone number of that place in case you need to be contacted.
While leaving your home without your cell phone may sound like an extreme measure, but you have to remind yourself that you are fighting an addiction, and that sometimes, extreme measures are warranted.
7. Disable Your Wi-Fi Or Mobile Data
If you have a smartphone, then mobile data or Wi-Fi is perhaps the most common reason for being distracted by your phone.
There is no doubt smartphones have a lot to offer, and with Wi-Fi and mobile data, you have the whole online world in the palm of your hands.
This means that there are many more distractions on a smartphone, and in most cases, a person will not even get to know how engrossed they are becoming in their phone.
Therefore, disabling your Wi-Fi or mobile data can have a lot of impact while you are out with your friends. You can also disable your mobile data completely to counter your addiction issue.
8. Keep Your Phone On Silent
Keeping your phone on silent while you are out with your friends is always a smart move in case you do not want to turn your phone off.
This will help you remain less distracted as and when you receive messages or calls. When you are less distracted, you can give more of your time and attention to your friends.
It is extremely rude to be on your phone when your friends are trying to talk to you or bond with you.
Real life connections are everything, and if you do not maintain them properly, chances are that you would not have much to do on your phone anyway.
9. Make A Conscious Effort To Keep Your Hands Off Your Phone
This is highly important.
In most of the cases, people will start fumbling around with their phones without even being aware of this habit of theirs.
However, if you start making a conscious effort to keep your phone away the moment you realize that you are on it, then you would be one step closer to removing your addiction. While it may be hard at first, with regular practice it will come to you eventually.
Soon, you will become in such a habit of this behavior, that you will not even want to grab your phone to use it in the first place.
10. Purchase A Phone That Is Not A Smartphone And Take It With You When Going Out With Friends
If you happen to have a smartphone, you might want to consider buying a regular phone without smartphone capabilities.
You can then carry this phone around with you wherever you go, leaving your smartphone back at home. The advantage of this will be that the regular phone will be less distracting as compared to a smartphone.
This is because of the fact that it will have no internet connection option, and thus you will only be limited to making calls or text messaging people.
Without the internet being in the palm of your hands, you would want to use this phone a little less.
Apart from this, regular phones are also more difficult to use when compared to smartphones. It takes longer to type text messages on them.
Some people consider those as so much hassle that they would rather not use it at all and only keep it for emergency purposes.
11. Remind Yourself That Your Phone Will Have Nothing New On It
Before you reach out for your phone, remind yourself how you just used it a few minutes ago and did not come across any new updates, notifications, calls, or messages, and then divert your attention to other more important matters at hand, i.e. spending time with your friends.
Once you keep reminding yourself, you will get into the habit of not touching your phone while in the company of other people.
You would also develop the habit of being more present around other people mentally and interact with them with your entire concentration towards them.
One should always remember that constantly being on your phone could take away chances of developing important and wonderful memories with your friends, and nobody should want that.
12. Make Use Of Your Hands To Do Other Things So That You Don’t Have Room To Hold A Smartphone
Another wonderful strategy to manage your phone addiction while you are out with your friends could be to make use of your hands more often to do other things so that they remain busy and do not have time for your phone.
Even if you aren’t holding anything in your hands, you can use them to make hand gestures or move them around casually while talking to other people.
Also, never hold your phone in your hand. That ignites further temptation to use your phone and you end up using it no matter what.
Therefore, keep your phone away and make sure that your hands remain busy so that you have no excuse to reach out for your phone.
Phone addictions can be a tremendous burden in one’s social life, even if that individual does not feel like it.
It limits actual social interaction and thus can cause a lot of problems later on in terms of mental and physical health.
Therefore, it is essential that people with phone addiction learn how to manage it properly before it starts taking a toll in their personal lives.
The magic of the virtual world can distract you from real life; therefore, you need to be able to set your priorities straight, use your phone moderately and let it be a useful tool instead of a necessity.
2 Comments Add one
Great tips To Manage Phone Addiction When You’re Out With Friends. i like all tips.
its also dnagerous for all human and why iam in 10th class and i inform himself about this addiction