With time, we develop habits that might have sounded right at that moment, but then over time, they have become an addiction or time stealers.
For example, I love to watch movies with family and friends. Gone are the days when movies are watched as a family in the living room television. Nowadays, every one just needs a phone, WiFi and a blue tooth ear plug to enjoy entertainment of their choice.
I am personally guilty to being addicted to watching movies in Netflix and Prime Video on my smart phone at least twice or thrice a week. Initially it was used only to entertain me during my travel.
However, it became a bed time addiction that sometimes ran late night even up to 2 AM on work week. It was also annoying to family who couldn’t find a good movie to watch during the weekend with me, as I would have watched all of them.
The only way I could do this was to remove the source of my habit from my environment, so my mind doesn’t seek the apps when I open my phone. Yes, I boldly deleted the apps from my phone permanently. With no Netflix or Prime Video in my phone, I couldn’t watch any movie or entertainment channel.
It was quite satisfying and I have never had an urge to reinstall the app. On the contrary, I gained a lot of time in my hands to pursue new habits or activities that enriched my life. Also started to look forward to family movie night in weekend when we could easily pick movies that none of us has seen !
In this day and age, we become addicted to many apps. Just browsing You Tube channel takes 2-4 hours away from your life without your knowledge. Gone are times when we made small conversation at home with family or went on a long walk to see sun set in the park or held hands enjoying each other’s company. Gone are times when kids only entertainment was playing in the park with other friends.
In this day and age, teenagers have only one thing that is the most dearest in their life. Yes, you guessed it right, it is their smart phone. Disciplining kids is easier if we threaten to removing access to their apps or phone. For example, clothes would magically get laundered and into the wardrobe or room is spic and span or coffee and dining tables are no more littered with books and kids stuff, when the phone privileges are at stake. I never fathomed that phone could be so central to anyone’s existence.
Adults are no less addicted. Browsing the Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and You Tube seems to be the very first thing we do early morning as soon as we wake up. We somehow have this inner want to see how many people liked our post or what is the gossip going on in our community that we build with these apps.
Sometimes keeping the phone away from you (remove it from your environment) especially in the early morning and late night hours, helps to avoid browsing the apps and adds quality time to discover yourself. with yourself during these hours.
So far, I am clean of my addiction to Netflix and PrimeVideo for almost 3 weeks now.. still counting!