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Clear your mind and overcome stress by not using social media on your smartphone

Have you ever noticed that you get a little nervous when your smartphone is too long away from you? Perhaps eliminating social media profiles is too harsh a decision.

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Have you ever noticed that you get a little nervous when your smartphone is too long away from you? Have you noticed that you are constantly worried about what is happening on the Internet without you? You pull out your smartphone to check the time, and then you're flipping through your Twitter feed. This habit affects your communication with friends and family, and even the clarity of your thoughts, but there are ideas on how you can get rid of it in a few weeks. Students notice that when they spend a lot of time on social media, their concentration and grades suffer. That is why many of them tend to use essay writing help to catch up with their study.

Many of those who have completely removed Facebook and Twitter recognize this as the greatest event that has had a strong impact on their lives. Perhaps eliminating social media profiles is too harsh a decision. They can be useful to you even for work, and why give up the pleasure of occasionally hanging out there. But let's find the best way to interact with them.

Use the web versions

App developers do everything possible to strengthen your addiction and develop in you the subconscious habit of entering the app with or without a reason. The game is called "make the user spend as much time as possible inside the app". And they win against us.

Facebook is constantly reporting that users are spending more and more time in the app, and so is Snapchat. As many eyes as possible for as long as possible — this is the goal pursued by every startup.

And here's the way out of this situation — use the most standard web versions. To open the app on your phone, you only need to touch the screen with your finger, the web already has some barriers to your action. Delete Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram from your phone and open it only in the browser, each time you log out of your profiles when you're done with work or entertainment. The password manager should also be disabled.

This approach has two advantages

You will significantly raise the barrier that you need to step over to just aimlessly flip through the tape. You'll have to open Twitter, login, and then read it in the not-so-nice web version. During the first few weeks, you will be kept from unnecessary visits to social networks by entering your username: in these few seconds, you will have time to think about whether you need to go there at all.

You will no longer be distracted by push notifications. Do you need to know immediately when someone mentioned you, liked you or left you a comment? Probably not. This approach will help you to avoid mindless smartphone use.

Set complex passwords, and then hide them

After a few weeks, you will most likely notice a problem: since you enter passwords often, you will do it without thinking, and when you wake up, you will suddenly find yourself in the Instagram news feed.

There is a way out. Generate complex passwords of 32 characters in some applications, save, print, and hide them where you can find them, but do not carry them with you.

Now logging in to social networks becomes a task that requires effort and time, and every time you enter these ridiculous passwords will be a reminder that you are struggling with an annoying habit.

Can't kill the app - kill the notifications

Notifications are a great seed and trigger for your habit: you see a notification, look into the app, get rewarded and release endorphins. Not only do notifications drag you down the procrastination rabbit hole, but they also disrupt your concentration. Research has shown that after a distraction, you will need 25 minutes to return to the previous task.

And the main reason to say "no" to notifications is that you do not need to know everything that is happening immediately. Likes, comments, and mentions on Twitter can wait.

Apps do their best to get you to turn on notifications right away, but why would you agree to them? Right now, mercilessly disable absolutely all notifications in the settings, leaving only the vital ones. Turn it off without thinking! In the end, you can always get them back.

Over the next week, notice how much more work you'll finish. You will probably be surprised that you have finally been able to finish reading a book or solve a difficult task that you have long postponed.

Customize your smartphone's home screen

Remove all the apps that you are stuck in from the home screen. This doesn't mean that you shouldn't have interesting apps and games on your phone at all, just that they shouldn't pop up in front of your eyes every time you unlock the screen.

You're just weaning yourself off the chest of smartphone procrastination, and the mere sight of these apps will make you dive headfirst into the clueless scrolling of the tapes. Even if you have removed the main time-consuming apps, you will quickly find a replacement for them, because you still need to scroll something pointlessly. Leave on the home screen only what you need for work and helps you focus on your tasks.

Breaking habits is easy

To break the old habits, you need new ones. So, you can replace the old ones with the new ones. By removing the triggers that drive you into bad habits, and adding new triggers that remind you why you need to get rid of these habits, you will increase your chances of success in dealing with distractions.

You may be ridiculed and called retrograde for using web versions of apps when you have a smartphone. But you will feel like you have made a big step and now you see life much wider than when you were constantly looking at your phone.

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