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WARNING: IF YOU MISS THIS POST YOUR SUBCONSCIOUS WILL NEVER FORGIVE YOU!

The same way babies feel excitement when you play ‘Peek-a-boo’ with them, you as an adult can be manipulated to think there is a big reveal. We now know a lot about social media and phone addictions but maybe you don’t know quite how much you are addicted?

Addiction is when you are thinking about something even when you don’t need it. In the nineties you’d be considered addicted to reading newspapers if you needed to read it every day for over half an hour. I’m not saying addictions are a bad thing as you can be addicted to things such as learning a new skill and so on.

I put out a post last week stating self-harm rates for teenage girls have gone up 70% since 2013 and many people commented about social media being the cause. So today I’m posting to make sure we understand addictions and if you do have a phone addiction make sure you try to understand why.

If you spend more than half an hour on your phone daily, looking at interest based content you essentially fall under the category. If you are still looking for interesting content after half an hour what’s to say you know how to be satisfied by enough content. Also worth noting whether you live your life based on ‘boredom cycles’.This is when you change activities based on when you become tired of something and not based on purpose or fulfillment.

If you are addicted to your phone, look into what you are addicted to know more about when you open your phone then you can either choose to make something of your life based on that interest or you can admit you need to refocus your life.

When parents tell their kids off for too much phone usage, they are missing the extended points and end up causing friction in their relationships. Find out what kind of things they are interested in and then help them build that into their life without needing a phone.

Example: if your son is hooked on his phone for entertainment reasons then you may need to address boredom/loneliness issues. If he’s interested in sport content then you can encourage practical activities. If all they do on their phones is cross compare celebrity gossip then address the topic of role models and ideally encourage them to read a biography of an inspirational figure.

The reason why I’m not saying cut off a person from their phone is because, unless you have other options for the individual, they’ll continue to crave interest based content on their phones. Many times we realise too late and come to a conclusion that a person has a phone addiction, which is leading to idleness and withdrawal symptoms from family/friends/activities.

Happy to speak further as there is no one set way for everyone to clear phone addictions but there are many ways to help someone divert their energy towards something better.

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