Behavior modification means an approach to change some negative behavior. Everyone has some specific behaviors that they want to change. I have many behaviors that I want to change but to start with I choose to monitor and decrease the time spent on my mobile phone. I think it hinders my daily activities and I can use that time on some other productive activities. I spent about 5-6 hours daily on my phone. Spending most of the time browsing on social media. Any kind of notification from my phone keeps giving me the temptation to check my phone because of this I am not able to concentrate on my work or assignment. Phone addiction cannot only affect health and work but it can also affect relations with friends and family. I believe this assignment is a great opportunity to decrease the time spent on my mobile.
Step 1
As stated above I chose to monitor and decrease my time spent on the mobile phone. I think I can spend that time on some more productive things. I have been observing my behavior for the last 10 days and I have observed that I have been procrastinating a lot of work and been using the phone instead. Even in class sometimes instead of concentrating in the class, I found myself using the phone. It has also been affecting my sleep schedule due to this I am not able to do my work efficiently. Even if I am with my friends or family instead of spending my time with them, I am usually browsing on my phone. I keep checking my phone for new notifications and can’t concentrate on other stuff. I think this smartphone addiction can adversely affect my future. It can impact my work, school, and relationships. It is also affecting my health. I get severe headaches at times and it also affects my vision.
It will be betterment of my own future and health that I try to spend as less time as possible on my mobile phone. I believe I can spend that time studying and completing my assignments on time. This assignment can help me with one of the behaviors I wanted to change from a long behavior. It is also easy to measure how much time I spend on my mobile phone by seeing the time spent on my mobile from the settings.
Step 2
Before starting the program for some days I observed the time spent on the screen from my phone settings. It was around 5-6 hours each day spending most of the time on Instagram and Snapchat. Around 2 hours were spent only on Instagram. After realizing how much time I am spending time on the phone I wanted to change this behavior as soon as possible. Time is a very precious thing and it is never going to return. Instead of utilizing this time and living in it, I am wasting time browsing on social media.
I have been trying to observe what lead to spending so much time on the phone. It’s basically when I feel stressed or angry. I turn to using my phone when I am experiencing unwanted feelings. I try to get involved in this virtual world to get rid of these unwanted feelings. Even a notification sound doesn’t let me achieve my desirable behavior. I keep getting a strong feeling of keep checking my phone for new messages. I have been trying to keep my phone from myself to stop me from using my phone while studying or doing some other work. I have been setting timers to keep away the phone from me and trying to find a new hobby to concentrate on.
I have also noticed in my behavior that whenever there is no internet network, I become irritated and restless and I don’t know what to do. But I have been trying to get above these feelings and limit the use of the mobile phone. There has been a lot of positive impact on my health. I have been able to complete most of my assignments before the due dates. I am also able to spend some more time with my friends and family. I am getting proper sleep at night which gives me energy for a whole day to do my work efficiently and effectively. All these positive points help me to concentrate on my goals.
Step 3
I created a proper plan to decrease my usage of my phone. Deleted some of the applications from my phone. I also discovered an application on the play store (spyzie) it restricts the usage of the application after a certain limit. I created a proper time schedule to use my phone Usually the sound of notifications gave me the temptation to keep checking the phone so I started to turn off my phone keeping it aside for some time. I usually used to study during this time. It helped me on concentrating on one thing. Earlier I used to spend days completing my assignment because I was not able to concentrate on one thing. I tried to find new hobbies. I started cooking. It helped me in staying hours away from my phone. It doesn’t only help me in staying away from my phone I also started eating healthy.
I set a target for each day, I started slowly keeping my usage to only 5 hours and tried to lower my usage by 30 minutes every day till my usage reached 3 hours. to be honest it was really difficult to follow the plan. In the starting, I was not able to achieve my goals. So, I started awarding myself to achieve my goals. It was much-needed motivation for me. I used to award myself with ice cream after successfully achieving my target for each.
Only setting a proper plan was not important but to follow it and achieve my goals. But there were many times I was not able to achieve my goals. I used to set a timer for not using my phone but sometimes I use to cheat and turn on my phone before the timer was off which resulted into that I was not able to achieve my goals. As a punishment I used to spend 30 minutes more studying and who likes to study more so I tried to avoid the phone as much as I can and achieve my daily goals.
Step 4
Frankly speaking, making the plan was a lot easier than following it. On the first day, I thought that I would not be able to follow the plan. Rewarding myself was not enough motivation for me so I introduced punishment if I don’t follow the plan, I will study 30 minutes more instead of watching Netflix or playing games. It helped me to stay on plan and not cheat.
Sometimes just turning off my phone was not enough to stop me from using so I used to hand it over to my roommate who use to give it back after 1 or 2 hours. during this time to cook and I also draw. It helped me to concentrate on some other stuff and not think about my phone for some time. I use to spend time with my friends and family. This extra time also helped me in doing my assignments before the due date,
After every day of following the program, I use to note how much time I spend on the phone. I have added the graph of how much time I spend on my phone in Appendix A. The results were amazing but I was not still able to achieve my goals. My time spent on my phone was significantly reduced to only 4 hours but my goal was to reduce it to 3 hours. I think it was still an accomplishment. I was using my phone for about 6-7 hours a day. I hope to continue this behavior even after this program is finished.
Step 5
I might not be able to achieve my goal but I still learned a lot of things. The goal of spending 3 hours on a phone might be unrealistic for a phone addict like me. I learned how to properly manage my time and have enough time for everything. I can see some good changes in my health too. I am getting proper sleep at night. It gives me the energy to effectively and efficiently during the day.
After facing difficulties in the first few days
I am thinking about following this plan in the future too so that I can achieve my goal of spending only 3 hours on my phone. I don’t want to go back to where I started and waste my time browsing social media.