Ever found yourself opening apps without even realising you're doing it? Reaching for your phone the moment you wake up? Scrolling mindlessly while watching Netflix, which is playing while you're also checking your emails? (Oh come on, I know it's not just me!)
Maybe it's time to change your mobile phone habits - but eeek, that sounds far too difficult, right? Here's the good news, the very clever people at Harvard Graduate School of Education have been working on this. They've developed a framework for rethinking and revamping digital habits that actually works. And trust me, I've seen enough digital wellness advice to last several lifetimes.
Here's their five step plan: Step 1: Checking Your Usage Think about all the habits you have around technology use. Not just the obvious stuff, like scrolling through social media while on you're on the loo, but the sneaky habits, like checking Instagram as soon as you wake up, or hiding in Reddit when you're trying to avoid thinking about something tricky. Remember, these "digital habits" can be good, or bad, or both! The Harvard advice is to write down all your digital habits and use an emoji to note how that habit usually makes you feel. You can use more than one if it gives you mixed feelings (like you might feel virtuous for checking your email, but miserable when you see there's yet more "urgent" emails from Sarah in HR).
Remember, this isn't about judgement, it's just about noticing patterns.
Step 2: Choose Your Challenge
Now you've got your list of digital habits, pick one that you want to change or do differently... and think about why that is.
Working out why it's important to change this habit is really important. It might be that there's a habit that is consistently making you feel sad, or it might be that you've spotted something you avoid doing, but really you should be doing more of (like checking your online banking if you've been indulging in too much retail therapy).
Step 3: Challenge Yourself! Make a plan for how you're going to change the habit you identified in the last step... but remember that you need to work out when you'll do something different, and what you'll do instead. Why? Because behavioural science shows us that when it comes to changing a habit, it's not enough to say what we won't do, we need to come up with some replacement activity (as everyone who has ever cleaned their teeth ten times a day to try to avoid eating cake knows). Pick a period of time for how long you're going to do this challenge for. Maybe a week, maybe two, no need to go crazy but definitely a bit more than "the next ten minutes because I'm somewhere with no phone signal anyway".
Step 4: Stacking The Deck In Your Favour Harvard call this the "boost" step, but I think my name is much more exciting. This step is about thinking about what you can do to make yourself more likely to succeed in your challenge (without going all radical and smashing your phone with a hammer). Some simple suggestions might be:
Putting your phone in another room at night (yes, you'll need an actual alarm clock. Argos still sells them)
Deleting apps (with their ease of use and constant pings and peeps) and using browser versions instead (less fun, slower, no pings)
Scheduling device free time (you don't have to talk to your family if you don't want, lets not go too far!)
Step 5: Tracking Your Progress This isn't about "succeeding" or "failing". It's about simply answering two questions:
How did it go with your challenge today?
What made your challenge easy or hard today?
By the end of your challenge period, whether it's a week or a fortnight or somewhere in between, you'll start to become aware that actually, you can identify habits you don't like, and can change them. Your challenge may have only been small - but it's been a meaningful start towards establishing a healthier relationship with the online world.
Find out more direct from Harvard at https://pz.harvard.edu/resources/digital-habits-checkup
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