8 Actually Useful Tips For Spending Less Time On Your Phone

Raise your hand if you’ve ever uttered the phrase “I want to spend less time on my phone” or created a New Year’s resolution around the goal ― and then failed to do so.

If you find that it’s challenging (like, really, really challenging) to decrease your phone use, know that it’s not because you have poor willpower. “It’s hard to change your habits around your phone use because our phones are deliberately designed to hack our brains and make it difficult to turn away,” Catherine Price, the author of “How To Break Up With Your Phone” and the Substack newsletter How to Feel Alive, told HuffPost via email.

What’s more, research shows that our incoming texts and social media notifications prompt a dopamine hit, which is when the feel-good sensors in our brains fire up. Beyond all of that, cell phone addiction is another reality for some people that can lead to outcomes such as stress, anxiety and depression.

Suffice it to say: Spending less time on your phone is not as easy as just putting your down phone or turning it off. Jenny Wise Black, a licensed marriage and family therapist and the host of “Lose the Phone” podcast, said you should give yourself props for actually wanting to be on your phone less.

“It is actually very, very encouraging to me that people would even have that resolution because it implies that there is some sort of belief that things could be better,” Black said. If you find yourself getting down about your screen time, focus on the fact that you’re aware enough and feel empowered enough to make a change. “That is not the case with everybody,” said Black.

Beyond that realization, there are a number of definitive ways to decrease your phone use. Here’s how to do it:

1. Think about your “why.”

If you’re