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Highlights
- The use of technology and social media have increased tremendously nowadays, and it may have some serious repercussions to your mental and physical health.
- If you feel you have an unhealthy digital dependency and it will affect your health, work, concentration and engagement with others.
- Don’t hesitate to reach out to a mental health professional to cure such addiction.
Technology and social media are now used in ways that face-to-face contact has almost become unnecessary. Social media was started to connect people from anywhere in the world and to give you freedom, it’s since evolved into a hobby used by all age group.
With the increasing use of technology for almost everything, digital dependency is also on the rise and it’s getting hard to get through the day without checking social media updates.
The use of technology and social media have increased tremendously today and it may have some serious repercussions to your mental and physical health.
Our brains identify using social media as a rewarding activity that you ought to repeat and such reaction may be more felt whenever you make a post of your own and gain positive feedback.
It is crucial to control the uses of technology and understand what other precautions we can take to protect ourselves from digital addiction.
How Digital Dependency can affect your everyday life?
However, there many benefits of technology with its own negative effects to consider when addicted to it. Some of the effects include, increased isolation and loneliness, being constantly distracted, lack of sleep, low self-esteem, absent mindedness, anxiety or depression, decreased physical activity, which may affect overall health, being less social, poor grades or work performance, ignoring the relationships in your real life, impulse control problems, getting angry or defensive when others comments on your behavior, aloof from real world.
How can you reduce your social dependency?
If you feel you have an unhealthy digital dependency, and it will affect your health, work, concentration, and engagement with others. You can consider the following tips to help you achieve a healthier balance with social media:
- Make the most of your free time: If you don’t have anything to do, don’t start using your phone. Find something productive to fill your time and to enhance you health and growth such as go for a walk, meditate, do some goal setting, exercise, start reading, meet up with friends and consider how you could be a better person and set yourself the challenge to act upon it.
- Turn off Notification: To make things easier, turn off your notifications, so you don’t get distracted. Leave social media for a period of time so that you do not get rapped up by who is interacting with your post.
- Use your phone to help you stop using your phone: There are a lot of apps that are designed to help you limit your phone use. You can set time limit to use your phone and also can put a time lock on it so you’re locked out for a specific time. These apps help you to use phone in a healthy way so that you can concentrate on the priority work and give time to your closed one.
- Turn off your phone at bedtime: If your phone is on or beeps it will distract your sleep, so it’s better to turn off your device. If you set alarm on your phone, set it on airplane mode. Give time to yourself and do whatever puts you in an optimal state of mind such as exercise, yoga, read books etc.
- Get some fresh air: No matter what you’re doing during the day, make sure to get some break and get some fresh air. As it recharges your batteries so that you can work with more energy and effectively.
- Digital Detox: Spending some time away from your phone and social media completely is known as digital detox. The benefit of digital detox is unmatchable and you will realize how much time you have for yourself.
- Take Small steps: To make it easier take one step daily. You might take a 15-minute walk and force yourself to leave your phone at home and once you get used to it, you increase the time to 20 or 30 minutes and so on.
Bottom Line
If you think you are too dependent on your phone or technology, so it’s time to take action. The tech addiction can affect you mental and physical health, so don’t underestimate it.
Try to take frequent breaks and set clear limits for you to prevent the digital addiction before it becomes harmful. Don’t hesitate to reach out to a mental health professional for help with this type of addiction.
