Connect Beyond The Screen
Step out of the digital world and enjoy your surroundings.
77% of UA undergraduate students have felt the need to cut down or limit their cell phone usage.
(UArizona Health & Wellness Survey, 2024)
What Is Your Relationship Status With Your Phone?
Is it complicated? Getting in the way? Or maybe you love it!
Digital detoxing is reflecting on your relationship with your phone and taking steps to change your attention to something else. To get started, consider how your phone makes you feel and how you spend time on our phone.
Two Key Themes For Digital Detoxing
Your digital detoxing journey can depend on two key things: feelings and time.
How Do You Feel On Your Phone?
We can feel different ways when we spend time on our phones. Here are some things to notice:
- Enjoyment level
- Feelings of guilt or regret
- Mental relaxation vs. mental overstimulation
- How connected you feel with others
- Changes in your mood
- Feeling triggered
- Your intentions
How Much Time Is It Taking?
Check the numbers. Screen time data shows you how you are using your phone. Here are some things to notice:
- Daily average time
- Peak days/hours
- Most used apps
Helpful tools for checking screen time:
Start Where You Feel Comfortable
Digital detoxing can look different for everybody, from thoughtfully re-organizing apps to intentionally managing your phone time.
Declutter Your Digital Space
Prioritize thinking and feeling better by clearing up your digital space.
Finding Your Balance
Be intentional with how you spend your time.
Make Your Phone Work For You
Set boundaries using your phone's functionality features.
Declutter Your Digital Space
Organizing and cleaning your digital space can help reduce the urge to click on apps out of boredom or habit. Follow accounts that align with your values, and interests and enhance your well-being.
Organize Apps
3 ways to help organize the apps/files on your phone:
- Prioritize your Screen Content: Put items that contribute to your happiness and productivity first.
- Rearrange Apps: Shift your apps away from your main screen.
Group Apps in Folders: Relocate apps into folders outside of the main screen.
Uninstall Apps
If you would like to take cleaning your digital space a step further, try removing apps.
5 reasons to remove apps:
- Distraction level: Remove apps that waste time without brining significant value or enjoyment.
- Lack of purpose: Remove apps that no longer match your interests or values.
- Unused apps: Remove apps that you never use.
- Emotional impact: Remove apps that trigger feelings of comparison or insecurity.
- Storage, battery, or privacy concerns: Remove apps that hog up storage, drain battery or compromise privacy.
Curate Your Social Media Experience
Our phones allow us to dive into the world of social media, making it tempting to curiously check your phone throughout the day. However, there are a few approaches you can take to adjust your social media experience.
5 ways to balance your relationship with social media:
- Follow Positive Accounts: Follow, like and comment on accounts that bring you feelings of inspiration, gratitude, and comfort.
- Customize Your Feed: Identify accounts that trigger stress, anxiety, and unfavorable feelings and unfollow or mute notifications to remove them from your feed.
- Use Content Management Features: Use features like "snooze" or "hide posts" to temporarily hide content.
- Take a Social Media Break: Take a break from social media. You can start with one hour, and gradually work up to a full day and then a weekend.
- Digital Detox with a Friend: Digital detox with a friend who also wants to take a break and have a shared experience.
Find Your Balance
There are moments throughout our day that we can practice being thoughtful of our phone usage especially during social gatherings and bedtime.
People and Phones
When you're with friends, family or loved ones, try to avoid using your phone out of habit. Instead, use it to enhance your time together by taking phots or sharing memories. Strive to be present, acknowledge others, and even spark conversations to deepen connections.
Bonus tip: Avoid checking your phone in the bathroom, while driving, reading, relaxing, or working out.
Sleep and Phones
Phones are stimulating and can easily draw us in, stealing precious sleep time. While having your phone close by can tempt you into late-night usage, it can also aid in better sleep if used wisely.
If you want to keep your phone nearby, try these helpful tips:
Bonus tip: If having your phone nearby is too tempting, try moving your phone a little further away and use a traditional alarm clock.
Purposeful Phone Habits
Let's remember all the useful tools our phones offer! It’s easier to be intentional with your phone use if you’re using the features for a purpose.
Before you got lost in endless scrolling or gaming, practice the purposeful habits below to decide how you are going to use your phone.
Name Your Purpose
Focus on:
- What are you using your phone for?
- Why now?
- What else could you do?
Use One Device At a Time
Limit yourself to only using one device (phone, laptop, tablet, smart watch, etc.) at a time.
Swap It Out
Replace phone use with something that is similarly hands on – pick up a book, craft or instrument instead.
Free on-campus resource:
Schedule Time
Schedule time to be on or off your phone.
For instance:
- 30-minute social media scroll after homework
- Avoid phone use 30-minutes before bed
Make Your Phone Work For You
Your time and health are incredibly valuable, put yourself first and make your phone use work for you, not the other way around.
Activate "Do Not Disturb" or Silence Notifications
Turn on "Do Not Disturb" mode or silencing notifications to improve your social interactions, sleep, and concentrations by reducing distractions.
Bonus Tips:
- Customize notification settings for specific apps.
- Use "airplane mode" during focused activities like homework or hobbies.
Discover how to easily enable "do not disturb" mode on your phone
Set App Limits
Setting app limits on your phone promotes time management and minimizes procrastination.
Bonus Tip:
- iPhones can be set up to require a passcode when a time limit is reached, and sharing that passcode with a trusted individual can help not going over time for the day.
Helpful Tools for Setting App Limits: set app limits:
- iPhone
- Android: Use Digital Wellbeing
- ClearSpace - An App designed to reduce phone addiction
Switch to a Grayscale Screen
Without the colorful display, you may find yourself less likely to mindlessly scroll through social media or other apps.
Bonus Tip:
- Explore how to create shortcuts for grayscale or associate it with a focus mode using the link below.
Cutting down on phone use is not always easy. Remember that phones are engineered to keep us locked in. Start small and be kind to yourself along the way.
It's Okay To Hit "Refresh" Again
Remember to reassess and be kind to yourself throughout this journey. Recognize that implementing new changes can be challenging and will take time. It's an ongoing process with adjustments along the way. Practice being patient with yourself as you take small steps to gradually finding a healthier balance between the digital world and your life offline.