How to Control your Phone Use and Stop the Addiction
I remember lying in bed at midnight, endlessly scrolling through Instagram reels, glancing at the iPhone clock in the corner, telling myself I’d stop in 10 minutes and finally go to sleep.
But I couldn't win the battle, and I ended up falling asleep at 2 AM, with my cheek on the screen.
At the time, this felt normal to me because most young adults my age were doing the same thing. But when you take a moment to look at the statistics and their implications,
it becomes terrifying.
A 2024 survey estimated that people born in the 2000s are spending an average of 6 hours per day on their phones.
Six hours represent almost 40% of your waking day—40% of your time spent consuming depressing news headlines, clickbait ads, and endless social media drama every day.
Now, you obviously have goals, dreams, and aspirations:
Maybe you want to get in shape.
Maybe you want to learn a new language.
Maybe you want to land a higher-paying job or earn a degree.
Imagine how much you could accomplish if you weren’t spending 6 hours watching the latest Kardashian relationship drama.
Put simply, if you take back control of your phone use, you’ll literally have the time to change your life.
Your Phone Has Been Designed to Keep You Addicted
The fight isn’t fair, and that’s the main problem. Let’s take social media as an example.
These companies are literally spending millions of dollars on user interfaces to make their apps as compelling as possible.
The same goes for ad companies. They study your habits, collect your data, and use principles of neuroscience to lure you into buying their products.
But it’s not just about them—your own brain is working against you.
By now, I’m sure you’ve heard of dopamine.
It’s one of the main neurotransmitters associated with pleasure-seeking and motivation. Through compulsive behavior and dopamine release,
your phone is basically conditioning you to be addicted to it daily.
Every app that you open, every notification that you receive, every button that you click on the screen each causing a spike in dopamine, gradually rewiring your brain to crave more of it.
But that’s a dangerous game because we know that anything causing frequent dopamine surges is likely to lead to addiction.
And I mean, myself first, I thought that my phone use was normal and that people talking about addiction were exaggerating
But whenever I tried putting my phone away for a few hours, it always magically found its way back into my hand without me even realizing it.
More than that, without my phone in my pocket, I’d start to feel weird and anxious. Without distractions, time felt like the enemy, always bringing boredom to the party.
The connection you have with your phone is so deep that most of the time it’s unconscious—you don’t even realize you’re using it or what you’re doing on it.
And to be honest I profoundly hated that feeling, the sense that my phone was controlling my behavior, not the other way around.
But the worst part is the time it steals from you. Yes, sometimes you really need to use your phone, and that’s fine.
But in those 6 hours, how many could you cut down to actually work towards your goals and not watch people arguing on twitter ?
This past year, I went from almost 6 hours to 2 hours per day. I took back 4 hours that I now invest in creating content, writing, and building my business.
And here’s how I did that.
How to get rid of your phone addiction
So, I can confidently tell you that breaking your compulsive phone habits is entirely doable, but it requires a clear strategy and a strong enough reason why.
The first challenge you’ll face is that your phone is always with you, it’s quite literally an extension of your arm.
That’s the biggest problem. Think about a smoker trying to quit. Would you recommend they carry a pack of cigarettes with them every second of the day?
Probably not …
1 - No phone for the first hour of your day
if you want to take control of your phone use and reclaim hours to work on your personal goals, the first step must be direct and physical. You need to tear down the dependency between you and your phone.
You have to establish a strict, daily policy—one that’s realistic but still challenging to honour.
For me, that policy is no phone for the first hour of the day. In my experience, this has been the most effective starting point.
The strategy is clear and my reason why is so that my brain isn’t infected by all the online stuff first thing in the morning.
To make this work, you’ll need to use willpower, but you have to be smart about it. Otherwise, it will drain your energy, and you’ll still have the rest of the day to get through.
So let’s get practical.
If you currently use your phone’s alarm and keep it on your nightstand, just inches from your head, you’ll instinctively pick it up first thing in the morning without even thinking about it.
What you need to do is break that habit, because consciously interrupting an unconscious pattern is tough.
But it’s much easier to disrupt the habit by changing your environment ahead of time.
So instead of wasting willpower in the morning, use it now to prepare for this new policy.
Change your environment for tomorrow. Don’t use your phone’s alarm to wake up. Don’t charge your phone next to your bed. Don’t even keep it in the same room.
Break the pattern, tonight plug the phone in the kitchen and use whatever other alarm you have, watch, clock, I had none of that so I was using my laptop’s alarm - sketchy but functional …
Second, use implementation intentions. Mentally rehearse the scenario so you’re ready to make the right choice.
Tell yourself something like, “If I want to pick up my phone during the first hour of my day, I’m simply not touching it.”
This will be challenging at first, but if you manage to avoid using your phone for the first hour of the day for a few days, you’ll start to notice your relationship with it rapidly changing.
Your brain will have time to wake up naturally, without being influenced by social media from the moment you open your eyes.
Your hormone levels won’t be disrupted by screen light, and your mood will be noticeably better as you have time to process what’s going on.
You just will feel 3x better while having more time for yourself.
2 - Make your phone uninteresting.
The second piece of advice is to make your phone uninteresting. The reason you’re spending hours on it is because there’s always something interesting happening.
There’s always a game, a political debate, or new TikTok dances.
There’s always something to watch or click on, and each time you do, it triggers a dopamine release. As I mentioned earlier, the more dopamine a behavior releases, the more your brain craves it.
That’s why your goal is to reduce the dopamine peaks that your phone triggers.
There are a few ways to do this:
Some people deliberately sabotage their user interface. I don’t mean drilling into your screen. I’m talking about removing colours or deleting certain apps.
You want to make your phone less flashy, less appealing.
This didn’t work for me because I work a lot with videos and need to see the colours.
So instead, I disabled notifications from apps. This was a game changer. You become the one deciding when to use Instagram, for example, instead of being controlled by notifications.
You don’t fall for that automatic physical built in response of picking up your phone every time that a notification pops up.
Now, your brain’s natural counter-response will be fear of missing out. I experienced this firsthand, wondering, “What if someone needs me urgently? What if something important happens and I need to be aware of it?”
Even though this feels real, it’s not very rational. Anyone who needs to contact you urgently probably has your phone number.
And if something significant happens, social media is likely the last reliable source you’d want to check for information.
Anyway very important things in your life happen in your real life and not on your phone.
3 - Put everything on your laptop
There’s just something different about laptops, they don't trigger the same feeling of quick gratification as a phone does.
For me, using a laptop feels much more intentional and easily controllable. I’ve rarely found myself mindlessly scrolling through Google Chrome or a blog page on my computer.
Now, this doesn’t mean your computer can’t be addictive, it can be, but it’s much less likely to happen.
You should take advantage of this by making your laptop your default choice for using the internet, whether for work or hobbies.
Whenever I need to do something digitally, I always set it up so that I have to use my laptop instead of my phone.
So, I suggest putting everything you may need on your computer and using it instead of your phone.
Save your passwords on your computer, not your phone. Bookmark your favorite websites on your laptop and close all tabs on your phone.
As a result,
when you need to check your emails, you'll do it sitting at your desk on your laptop.
When you need to edit pictures, you’ll do it on your computer.
When you want to watch Netflix, you’ll have to bring your laptop and find a comfortable spot.
That way you’ll have to go to the desk or at least go find your computer and sit somewhere to do the thing. This will be much more intentional and purposeful.
instead of just grabbing your phone from your pocket and lying down on the couch, starting to write an email only to end up watching dog videos on YouTube an hour later.
4 - There’s no way around the discomfort
I discussed this in a previous article which you can find here but I can’t help but bring it up again because it’s deeply connected to our topic here.
The real work isn’t about finding alternatives, hacks, or ways to make your phone less attractive, these are helpful yes but don’t resolve the underlying issue.
The hidden reason most people are on their phones 24/7 is that it keeps them from facing their boredom and distracts them from their negative feelings.
Because what happens when you start to feel bored ?
Your mind begins to wander, and you might start thinking about the mistake you made at work today,
or whether you should send that text to your ex-girlfriend, or maybe the upcoming mortgage payment.
People are afraid of spending time in their own heads because being bored means confronting whatever they’re trying to escape from by using their phones as a mental distraction for 6 hours every day.
This is not healthy, your brain is supposed to be processing these ideas, thoughts, feelings and not confronting yourself to it, does more harm than good.
Because the truth is that, there’s no way around this—you’ll have to learn how to sit with discomfort and manage the negative thoughts that may arise.
At first, you’re going to hate it. You might even feel physically agitated and anxious, but by resisting the urge to use your phone as a soothing tool and instead sitting through the unease, you’ll unlock a new level.
You’ll start to see and understand things because you pay attention to it instead of shifting your attention on social media every time that you start to feel like you may be bored.
You’ll be practicing what’s called introspection. By saving your attention you’ll be able to explore your thoughts, reactions emotions.
You’re putting yourself in the perfect scenario to observe and explore what’s happening in your own life.
This skill will not only help you understand your world, but it’ll help you make the right decisions, think critically, be more objective and find better solutions to your problems.
In the end, by being in control of your phone use, not only will you get back a big chunk of time, but you’ll also live life more fully and be more present.
So as always, I hope this helps, trust the process.
And if your goal is to get in shape, loose the excess weight and build muscle, then you should consider joining Fitness Autonomy.