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Smartphone addiction is a real problem for a lot of people these days, but not me
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I'm a computer nerd so I'm addicted to my Mac. It has all the same downsides, except I can lie to myself and say that I'm being productive
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So today I'm going to give you 10 actionable tips to break your addiction to your smartphone
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Number one, remove all of these algorithmically driven, bottomless content apps. This is the hardest one to implement because it changes the apps you use and the people you follow
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but it will have the most meaningful impact on your life. Apps like TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and these days even Twitter
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they keep you engaged because they never run out of stuff for you to see. So if you have a problem with Twitter, switch to Mastodon
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It's an open source, community driven alternative, and odds are if you're watching Cult of Mac, you probably have pretty nerdy taste
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and a lot of the people you follow might already be on Mastodon. The official Mastodon app makes it incredibly easy to get started
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and if you ever used apps like Tweetbot, Aviary, Mona, all of them have been rewritten for Mastodon
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Now if you're still using Twitter, I get it, you probably have a few friends who haven't moved over yet
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but you can still make that experience nicer while you're at it. From anybody's profile, tap the three dots menu and tap turn off retweets
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That way you'll only see tweets from the people you care about and not all the other junk that can fill it up
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And while you're at it, switch from the home tab to the following tab
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Next, if you have a problem with YouTube, you can get all of the videos from the people you care about as an RSS feed
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instead of going down the rabbit hole of the YouTube homepage. First, you'll want to download an app like NetNewswire, which is completely free and I highly recommend
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Then, from any YouTube channel, you'll tap the share button and you'll tap NetNewswire
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Then you'll have all of the videos from all of the people you want to see in a simple chronological feed
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and none of the algorithmically recommended content that'll suck you into that rabbit hole for hours and hours and hours
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And you know what? If you still want local news in your community that you used to get on Facebook
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add a local newspaper to NetNewswire. You just created it for your YouTube subscriptions
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If you want to get technology news and follow your other hobbies that you used to get on Reddit
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add blogs that write about that same stuff to NetNewswire. From people who know what they're talking about, not random strangers on the subreddit
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Number two, say you can't completely cut out one of those apps, well, you can still set limits on how much time you can spend on it in screen time
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Go to settings, screen time, app limits, and tap add limit. With one tap, you can add a whole category of apps like all social media
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but you can also add specific apps by checking through the list. If you want to set a daily time limit and then tap customize days
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you can have this work every day, just on weekdays or some other custom schedule you want
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Then tap add and you're all good to go. Now you can add another set of app limits for even stricter rules if you want even greater restrictions
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And this feature is really smart. If you reach your limit on the Facebook app, you can't just go to facebook.com
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Number three, maybe this isn't enough and you want to limit access to your whole phone
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Go to settings, screen time, downtime, and turn on a schedule. Just like before, you can set whether you want it every day or weekdays, whatever
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and you can set a time to start and end. Now there might still be a few apps that you do need to access all the time
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like Slack or Maps or Messages, so you can go back to screen time, always allowed
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add apps by tapping the green plus, or remove apps by tapping the red minus
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And there might be specific people who you always need to contact
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so go to allowed communication, specific contacts, and add anybody who you might need to call or message in a pinch
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If this sounds familiar, it's very similar to how you set up focus modes
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and you can have a bunch of focus modes for every kind of situation. You can read all about that in the video description or by clicking this card here
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Number four is really simple, out of sight, out of mind. Go back to your home screen and remove all of the apps that might be tempting to you
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Just tap and hold to enter jiggle mode, tap the minus symbol, and tap remove from home screen
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Or really, delete app if you want. Number five, right when you start to get a hang of things
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these apps are going to try and draw you back in with notification bait
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You'll start getting notifications, not because people liked or commented on your post
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just trying to draw you back in, like, hey, somebody posted this
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Hey, see what your friends are up to. Hey, please come back. Please
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You can almost always turn these off, you just need to know where to look. Here are instructions for a bunch of apps
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If you need written instructions, there's a link in the video description
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I'll give you a moment to take a screenshot. Number six, some apps don't give you that setting
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so you can hit back and turn off all of their notifications. Just settings, notifications, pick a specific app
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and you can just turn them all off if you want. I at least recommend turning off lock screen and notification center
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so your phone doesn't draw you in when you're otherwise not using it. You can just check it on your own time of your own volition
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Number seven, you can hide all notifications from the lock screen. Instead of it filling up with banners, you'll just see a simple count on the bottom
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Go to settings, lock screen, and switch it from list or stack over to count
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If you're worried about important stuff slipping through the cracks, turn on scheduled summary
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and this will give you a nice presentation of everything important on a time of your own choosing
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Number eight, say all of these things don't work and you still find yourself looking at your phone too much
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Well, you can make your phone less interesting to look at. Go to settings, accessibility, display and text size, color filters, and turn on grayscale
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It's a really simple trick, but it works. To make sure you don't lose on any important functionality
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go back to display and text size, and turn on differentiate without color
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Number nine, turn off face ID or touch ID to make your phone harder to get into
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If you have to enter your passcode every time, it'll take more friction
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and it'll have to be a more intentional action to use your phone
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Go to settings, face ID and passcode, enter in your passcode, and then turn off iPhone unlock right at the top
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Finally, number 10, you can see how well you're actually improving. Go to settings, screen time, see all activity
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and you can see a breakdown by the different categories of apps you use, and you can swipe through your history to see whether you're improving or getting worse over time
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You can also see which apps are the worst offenders at sending you the most notifications
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and other statistics like how many times you pick up your phone throughout the day
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So those are all 10 of my tips. Links to everything I talked about are in the video description
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along with an article on how to use focus modes. I'm Dikra van Jones with Cult of Mac
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Microsoft Mechanics www.microsoft.com www.microsoft.com
