Phone addiction

I'm addicted to my phone and I hate it. I knew it's bad. People wrote papers, essays and blog posts about it. Finally, I started feeling it on my own skin.

According to papers by Devi et al. and Muppalla et al., who researched screen-time impact on children and adults correspondingly, excessive screen media usage has predominantly negative effects.

For children, though, a slight positive impact on cognitive development has been observed, with the potential to enhance education and learning. However, negative effects were much more significant since screen-time can negatively affect executive functioning, sensorimotor development and long-term academic outcomes. Language development is also affected by screen time, as well as social-emotional development. It can also lead to issues like obesity, sleep disturbances, depression and anxiety, as well as impair emotional comprehension, promote aggressive behavior, and hinder social and emotional competence.

For adults, the conclusion is that excessive screen time can have significant negative impacts on both physical and mental health. Among potential issues, authors name eye strain, neck and shoulder pain and back pain as well as depression, anxiety and other mood disorders.

From my side, I'm noticing that I have gotten addicted and that this affects my life in a bad way, it does make me miserable. In the last weeks my daily screen time averaged to 3 hours. I picked this thing up aournd 95 times a day on average! This is insane! So, to fight it, I'll start with two things right now:

• Get rid of hundreds of tabs I have open in Chrome and make sure I have max 5 open
• Introduce a habit not to use the phone between 8PM and 9AM

Longer-term, I'd love to have a full detox with some weeks in the mountains in the tent. But let's see how it goes. Wish me luck! :)