How to disconnect from your smartphone - for things that matter?

I was talking to two people today. When I was focused on one person because he had the information I needed at that point - I noticed the other person started checking his phone. After a while, the reverse happened.

In some time, for a brief period, all three of us were on our phones!

I also remember an incident when I came back from work and decided to spend quality time with my daughter instead of letting her sleep. But within a few minutes of chatting, I had gotten onto my phone. I was jolted back only when my daughter said - “Why do you even come and talk to me if all that you want to do is be on your phone?”

There are so many times when in an office meeting - you see someone completely disconnected from what’s going on and immersed in their phone.

At one point I thought “How rude?” At other times when my ego was triggered it was more of “How dare they ignore me?”

Till I realized, I was doing the same to others. In fact, the bigger truth is that most people are doing this to everyone else around them.

25 years ago, mobile phones were not a thing and now we cannot seem to disconnect from them. In fact, we have withdrawal pangs if we are separated from our phones. Recently this happened to me because I had given my phone for some fixing and I was waiting for my wife in a mall - there was genuine discomfort when I did not have the phone with me.

So, what will it take to disconnect from our smartphones? First, we should want to do it - that leads us to the WHY?

Why should you disconnect from smartphones?

1. Distraction - because every ping, every time the screen lights up, it pulls our attention. What if I am missing out on something important?

2. Quality of our focus, involvement, and interactions is deteriorating - we can’t go deep on anything because we are so used to browsing - jumping from one trivia to another.

3. Disrespect - being present with someone but not giving our attention is hugely disrespectful of their time and in fact our time too.

4. Need for constant stimulation - normal has become boring. We can’t even waste a few minutes without looking at our phones - but what exactly do we look at?

5. Deep human connections are getting disrupted - relationships are weakening.

And of course, there are many many more reasons.

Disconnect - for things that matter

If we want to disconnect, we need the following:

1. Awareness of our patterns in terms of where is our unhealthy engagement with our phones causing issues.

2. Have a clear strategy to avoid using the phone in certain situations -

• Keep the phone turned down and silent in meetings.
• Keep it outside the room when you meet your kids.
• Keep phones away from your line of sight when you are working.

3. Keep reminders to help you implement this strategy – I made my daughter my accountability partner by asking her to tell me whenever she saw me on the phone instead of talking to her. She was excellent at it.

4. Have wind-down and phone-free zones incorporated into your life -

• No mobiles one hour before sleeping (avoid over-stimulation).
• No mobiles at the dinner table (to encourage conversations).
• No mobiles for one hour in the morning (self-care).
• No mobiles on Sunday mornings (family time).

We cannot live our life being so distracted - real experiences are what life is about. Let your phone be an enabler in your life and not a usurper of your life energy.