An activity, if done regularly will become a habit.
A habit if repeated frequently will become an addiction.
First we will understand what an addiction is. If you have no control over any of your activity you are addicted. Many people do not like to recognize themselves as addicted to something but such addiction may reach a point at which it is harmful. Addiction to substances or activities can sometimes lead to serious problems at home, work, school and socially.
Mobile Phone is a device which has become an essential instrument in our lives these days without which we cannot imagine our lives now. The other devices like Calculator, Camera, Memory pad have also lost their regular usage. The smart phones are slowly replacing even the Desktop /Laptops. But we have to question ourselves whether are we using the smart phone smartly?
The excessive dependence/addiction of Mobile phone not only damages our bodily organs but also the family relations and career unless the usage is controlled. One of the health hazards can be poor eye sight. Life style becomes sedentary leading to obesity, laziness. The mind is occupied with the stuff of mobile phone instead of vision for the future.
You can observe whether you are addicted to MOBILE/CELL PHONE or not by simply answering to the following honestly.
1. How many times I am looking at my cell phone in an hour:
2. If I am otherwise engaged in any work, party, movie: Am I feeling something is missed till I find my Mobile Phone?
3. Am I picking up or checking my Mobile immediately after I get up from sleep/nap?
4. Am I looking at the Phone frequently though spending with my family and friends?
These are some of the signs that you are addicted or on the brink of getting addicted. By understanding the situation and realizing the harm of addiction, we can easily come out of this and take control of our life.
So please do some introspection with these simple self questions:
1. In that hour, is any very important thing in my life would have been missed, had I not checked up my Cell Phone?
2. While using my cell phone, which APPS are mostly consuming my time? Note down honestly-
• Whatsapp/Viber/Line/Instagram
• Text Messages / Mails.
• Games
• Camera Roll
• Facebook
• Any other App
3. Now, we can understand where we are losing most of our time on cell phone. Just at this stage, we will start using the smart phone in a smart way.
4. Let us fix exact time to open the mostly used APP. For ex. If the APP used mostly as per point no.3 is Whatsapp/Viber/Line/Hike: then we will fix the time to open it once in a day in morning at 8.30 AM and that too for 5 minutes only. We will decide not to give reply to formal messages like, good morning/good night/how r u etc..,- we will just ignore and do not bother. And also turn off notifications for these Apps.
5. If any useful or concerned messages are there, attend to it.
6. Disable wifi /cellular data for most of the time of day.
7. Develop some hobby like, Gym, Writing articles, Making PPT of any interesting subject, Brisk Walking, Photography, Singing, Lyrics, Learning a new language etc.,
8. In place of the time saved on cell phone usage, increase the time spent with family which will improve relationships.
9. Keep the cell phone in switch off mode for one day and you will realize that your world is not stopped. You will have peace of mind. Try to live without cell phone for some part of the day. This will help in improving your memory power on important things and will be able to focus on the things which are useful to you for better life.
10. If you start identifying the problem, you can easily come out of it and can enjoy the life prudently. Let’s take advantages of it and not addicted to it.
By: CA B SHIVAJI PRASAD
CAclubindia
