SocialMediaBreakup

https://www.socialmediabreakup.com/shift-your-focus-from-your-phone-to-an-activity/ When I tell you to think of a purple car, you will imagine a purple car in your mind. When I tell you NOT to think of a purple car, you will imagine a purple car in your mind. The same applies to the concept of the Law of Attraction. When you keep telling yourself “I don't want to drink coca-cola anymore” or “I will stop drinking coca-cola”, the focus is on…exactly: coca-cola. The word don't or stop have very little effect when comparing the statement to “I will drink 2 infuser bottles of water and lime 3 times a day”. Now the focus is shifted to a solution, a replacement activity, a different action. That's why it is so important to brainstorm about activities you want to take on. You want to ask yourself questions like: What do I want to pursue? What would I like to do instead of using my phone? What activities can I replace with certain activities on my phone? What would I like to achieve in my life? How do I like to carry myself? How do I want to identify myself as a person? What habits are required to make a successful transformation? Think in terms of solutions and actions, instead of what NOT to do. When we talk about spending less time with our phones and social media, we often concentrate on this very desire. We keep using social media constantly while complaining about it afterward. It is easy to dismiss a social media session as a relevant or innocent session when you listen to that voice saying “don't worry, everyone is using social media!”. When you do catch that voice trying to convince you no change is necessary, you don't want to merely tell yourself: next time I will not go for my phone so quickly! Go deeper than that. It's a great start that you acknowledge your phone use as extreme. However, to really get that motivation going, you want to have a vision to focus and cling on. I'm asking you now: Why do you really want to use your phone less? Why is it so important to use social media less? What are you missing out on in your life? How is too much tech use preventing you from growing and improving your life? For who are you doing this other than yourself? Your spouse? Your children? How do you want to use your smartphone and social media? Get very real about why it is so important to control your phone use. With this clarity, you want to create a vision for your life where tech is helping you achieve it. Together with the answers to the questions mentioned earlier, you want to create a clear picture of the steps you need to take to build a new identity for yourself. Get pulled by a vision of the future. Turn your back on your phone instead of looking at it while trying to push it away. Don't keep your attention on the phone. Place your attention on something else, and your phone automatically disappears from your thoughts. Introduce other digital wellbeing strategies such as placing your phone out of sight and the use of the Do Not Disturb option. Out of sight out of mind. That's the beauty of focusing on something very important in your life: the road you're traveling on to become better every single day. When you're so immersed in your own development and evolution, your phone won't stand a chance to demand your attention like you're some cute obedient puppy waiting to take orders.

https://www.socialmediabreakup.com/be-in-awe-of-your-life-and-the-world/ Who doesn't love flying? The main experience starts when you enter the airplane while hearing this calm melody and a voice welcoming you aboard. You look for your seat, put away your hand baggage and finally sit down while looking for the seatbelt. Some people immediately take their book, send their last messages on their phone, or place earbuds in their ears so they disconnect from that chaos of people finding a spot for their luggage and seats. Next, that moment arrives where the plane starts taxiing slowly towards the runway. On the runway, it stops and prepares for takeoff. When the plane moves with enormous velocity to takeoff, some people stop their activity to fully experience their last minutes in that city while others keep doing what they're doing. Most passengers sitting next to the window take a moment to look outside when the plane is ascending. They experience this feeling of awe, this feeling of reverence and admiration for the world that is becoming smaller and smaller. Feelings of clarity and awareness kick in, making you realize that you're actually leaving a city and heading towards your next destination. There are some key moments that are happening during that moment and the entire trip. First of all, most people put their phones away. When they do use their phone (while wi-fi is disabled), there is a clear intention behind the action. They may change the song they are listening to, look at some photos, or play a game. We don't use our phones mindlessly as we are used to when we're with both feet on the ground. What's interesting as well, is that people have to become creative with how they spend their time. Some passengers play card games, watch movies on their tablets, read a newspaper, eat, or sleep. Everyone has their own way of making the best use of their time. It's nice to see that some start a conversation with a fellow passenger they don't know. Not everyone appreciates this of course, but it is positive to see we are able to engage with one another when our phone is not constantly asking for (demanding) our attention. What really fascinates me personally, is that because you are forced to sit still and wait, your mind travels and starts reflecting. You're reflecting on your new adventure, how you left that previous city, whether you will go back one day, if you have spent your time wisely there etc. Other questions that tend to arise are more existential such as am I making the right move to go to the city I'm going to now, what do I expect from my next adventure, what do I actually expect from my own life, am I happy with my choices and what are my next intentions and goals in my life. I guess such questions may arise because you are completely disconnected from all the noise below you on planet earth. You are up in the air completely zoomed out from your life, society, expectations, and responsibilities. Now there is time to think, reflect, and contemplate. Now there is time to really go through with yourself what you want for your next steps to be like in your life. It is really possible to completely zone out, especially when you immerse yourself in the unique view while listening to uplifting or calm music. You are in awe of your life and the world, similar to the overview effect I imagine. Such feelings of reverence in the plane are not as powerful probably, but that feeling might be the overview effect's little cousin. You think more macro about your life and the world than micro. The more mindful, intentional, appreciative, and aware you become, the more you are able to resist going for your phone.

https://www.socialmediabreakup.com/introduce-intermittent-smartphone-fasting-in-your-life/ You may have heard of intermittent fasting. You choose regular time periods to eat and fast. For instance, you might try eating only during an 8 hour period each day and fast for the remainder. Fasting for 16 hours is popular when it comes to intermittent fasting. You start your breakfast at 9 AM and finish your dinner by 5 PM. The next time you eat will be breakfast at 9 AM the next day. I won't discuss the pros and cons here, but this is a popular and interesting concept that is followed by many. Intermittent smartphone fasting has basically that very same definition. You choose regular time periods on a daily basis to use your smartphone. For example, you are allowed to use your phone between 7 PM and 9 PM. Create such time periods for your daily mornings, afternoons, and evenings. I can imagine you won't introduce a 16 hours fasting period, but you may introduce a 10 hour fasting period from 10 PM to 8 AM. Then you will control how your evening ends and not your phone. You choose the last message or person you see and not your phone. The same applies to mornings. You wake up and decide what the first message is that you will see that sets you up for the day. Too many people allow their smartphones to decide where their focus should go first thing in the morning, with what feelings and thoughts they should start the day. Take control over your evenings and mornings by implementing this type of fasting. Stop using your phone at 10 PM and only check it again at 8 AM the next day when you have taken care of your morning habits. Let's not forget, you can also implement intermittent social media fasting. You dedicate a time slot where you are allowed to use social media or where you are not allowed to use social media. Or what about intermittent Instagram fasting for example. Set the alarm that reminds you to initiate the fast and one that reminds you to end it. Decide after the experience if you want to increase or decrease the fasting. What matters is, that you train your willpower to not touch your smartphone, social media, or a particular app during the fast that you have agreed with yourself for your own benefit. Screen Time for the iPhone and Digital Wellbeing for Android can help you with that by setting time limits for your apps.

https://www.socialmediabreakup.com/delete-the-social-media-app-when-youre-done/ Reducing your phone use has a lot to do about what apps you have installed on it. Remove all apps and you will use your phone less. No surprise there. What we really want is to be able to use our phones less while all apps remain installed. This is possible but requires some reprogramming of our habits. You want to add some friction to make it harder for yourself to use an app. When you're able to use the app more mindful, you can keep it installed. Although there are many cases where people don't want to reinstall certain apps. They are so aware of how time is wasted on an app, they don't want to see it on their smartphone anymore. What is important is that you start to pay attention to how and when you use the app. A strategy you can use is to delete the app after you're done using it. That's it. Let's say that now, this very minute, you open the Facebook app. You can use it as you please, but you have to delete it when you finish. Now you start to be more mindful of your use. Your thinking will be future-oriented, meaning you anticipate opening it another 4 times, so you do all the necessary tasks now that you normally would do 10 minutes later when you open the app again. When you're done, you delete the app. BUT! When you want to use the app again, you download it again. That's it. That's the strategy. When you go through that whole process of opening Google Play or the App Store, you're going to think twice before opening and closing the app! You will use the app with more intention now. The whole habit of opening the app is so ingrained in your system, that you will look for it at random moments. Since you won't find it, you get out of the “programming”. You “wake up” because the app isn't there anymore. That's how you become more self-aware. This is a prerequisite for change to happen. You want to make the unconscious conscious. it's fine to reinstall the app and use it again, as long as you delete it again when you close it. Unprogram yourself to tap the Tik Tok app just because you wanted to check the weather. Get out of this app cycle habit where you have to go through 5 apps before locking your phone again. Train yourself to be more mindful. Take control over the apps instead of them controlling you. So choose which apps you want to use for this strategy and start deleting them after you've opened them. Later on, you can always decide whether you want to leave certain apps permanently deleted.

https://www.socialmediabreakup.com/move-an-online-relationship-to-the-offline-world/ It is much easier to fool someone online than offline. Online you can tell any person any story you want since all you need to do is typing the words. While typing you can decide to beautify particular details or invent details to spice up your story. I mean…who will find out right? The level of anonymity makes it much easier to fool people. To manipulate people. When you're naive or haven't experienced blunders online, you may find yourself believing a story a bit too quickly. What's different now in comparison to many years ago, is that video conversations are very common now. Many years ago, it was normal to be talking, “falling in love”, and establishing a (romantic) relationship with someone while never having seen that person on video, let alone in real life. We were sending each other photos of course, but enabling the webcam wasn't always common. As you've probably guessed, sending a photo is easy. Who will know if it is really you in that photo!? You can easily send fake photos and the person won't know. Nowadays we video call and get to know each other that way. Starting a romantic relationship online is the new normal, and I definitely support that. What can be troubling, is when people keep their engagement online. Of course, now with the pandemic, it is much harder to meet each other in the real world. But even in a time where people could only associate corona with a beer brand, people often hesitate to meet offline. Meeting someone in the offline world is vital. You will want to put yourself in a position where you can feel that person's energy and witness their body language, attitude, and behavior. I've heard people say they are in love and have a girlfriend or boyfriend for 2 years, but have never met in real life yet. Some couples that do finally decide to meet in person, find themselves disappointed in each other due to a mismatch between the actual person and the person they thought they were. The click just isn't there somehow. Not that this happens all the time of course. There are many success stories of people who meet online and end up in marriage. Do keep in mind: do your best to meet the person you've met in the virtual world in the real world. When you meet someone on Tinder or Bumble for example, make sure you go for that first date as quickly as possible. Not that you should ask the person to meet up after 2 text messages, but after a few days of exchanging text messages which represent mutual interest, you will want to ask that question. Ask that simple question: let's meet up for a coffee? You can only go to the next level in your relationship when you have been in each other's company. When you have embraced one another and when you have looked in each other's eyes without a screen in your midst. Don't assume that technology can help you with everything. Screens won't be always around to save you. Rely on yourself and be confident that the person will like the real you and vice versa in real life. When someone is reluctant to meet you and keeps making excuses why they are not able to, something is up. Be firm with the standards you uphold for yourself and don't kid yourself while trying to ignore the red alerts. Be careful not to be all in love while thinking your boyfriend or girlfriend you've met online is perfect, it is easy to display “perfection” online. It is easy to come up with your own story. No wonder why so many people are manipulated and realize this too late, unfortunately.

Who doesn't love food!? A life without the pleasures of food will undoubtedly be less exciting. Food is one of the many go-to factors of life that we can feel easily grateful for. Like with anything, good high-quality food takes time. Patience, care, and dedication are required like with everything else that is great in life. No wonder we post dishes on social media, especially when we don't really know what else to post about! Food always does well. Most of the time. Especially when you're in a totally different continent where you witness meals you didn't know could look like that! When I see a photo of a dish that someone posted, I'm keen to check if the person is mentioning the ingredients. If the goal is to teach, then they are included. Oftentimes the photo represents a moment of “the good life”. Nothing wrong with that. What is fascinating though is the number of effort people put into taking and posting these photos. I've been in various restaurants where I see people treating taking a simple photo as some complex project that has to be right. Sometimes there are levels of stress involved. In those moments I wonder: why do you find it important to take that photo? Who are you doing this for? This process can take quite some time… The angle isn't right, or dozens of photos have to be taken first. That's not the end of it of course. Now there is the challenge to choose the best one! When that's finally done, there is some extra contemplation regarding which filters would match perfectly with that photo. Of course, this entire process has to happen right there and then. This is not a process that is happening after the meal. As you can guess, sometimes the food gets cold and the stress continues. Now the person doesn't stress because they have to post the meal on social media, they stress because they have to eat fast. Witnessing this whole undertaking does make me think: where does this desire to share with everyone real-time come from!? Why does everyone need to know right here right now? This is just an example of why we miss out on opportunities to enjoy the moment. We bring extra concerns with us no matter where we are or what we do. We feel the world needs to know what we do and they should know it now. Relax. The world can wait. Yes, your meal looks fantastic, but the only person who will eat it is you. Take that photo if you want, but then put your phone back in your pocket. Leave it there during your entire restaurant experience. Savor the food. Enjoy the smell and taste. Be one with your meal and the person at your table. Don't invite the world to such intimate moments. Own those moments. A joyful life is just a series of happy moments. Allow the happy moments and stop being busy trying to get a joyful life. Experiencing such great moments right there and then, that's the key to a happy life.

https://www.socialmediabreakup.com/ask-yourself-the-right-social-media-questions/ When we approach someone or meet someone, questions will be asked. You ask questions to get information from that person. The more information you gain, the more opportunity there is to connect with the person. You learn about the person. You understand what the person is about it. You find out if this person is someone you want to talk to again. The above mostly happens when the questions are right. The better the questions, the more you may understand how someone operates on an emotional and spiritual level. While we do ask questions, we don't always ask deeper ones. This doesn't only apply to others, but to ourselves as well. While the whole concept of why asking questions is a no-brainer, it's interesting that we don't ask clear questions to ourselves. We don't really have such deep conversations with ourselves. If we have established that we ask questions to know one another, why don't we attempt to know ourselves better? Why don't we get to ask the hard questions to ourselves? We may have many answers to deep questions, but are we actually conscious of those answers? Have we really contemplated challenging questions we don't always dare to ask others? Asking questions is a vital activity that we should be taking on. This is one of the reasons why people journal: to have a conversation with oneself, to gain clarity of one's own feelings and answers. It isn't always comfortable. No wonder we oftentimes avoid asking the hard questions to ourselves. We may know the answer but we don't like it, we don't want to be thinking about it. When you're not happy with your social media and phone use, it's time to ask yourself some questions. Ask yourself the following questions after a phone session or social media session: What have I learned? Have I learned something? Has this session benefited me in any way? What have I gained from this? How do I feel about it? Did I feel happy about it? Do I still? Have I built a connection with someone? Has this improved a relationship? Get honest with yourself. Write your answers down. Get a clear look at those answers, have them out there. Carefully analyze the results after each session and see what activities you should reduce. Make it clear to yourself why you want and should reduce your screen time. Make it clear to yourself how you want to use social media and your phone. How do you want both to enhance your life? Go deep and confront yourself. With clarity comes power. It might be provoking at first, but the result is that you will feel a lot more comfortable with yourself. You can be yourself when you know yourself. Besides, the better you get in asking questions to yourself, the better you understand what questions are useful when you meet someone you really want to connect with.

https://www.socialmediabreakup.com/leave-your-smartphone-dormant-at-a-concert/ Our phones have amazing high-quality cameras. The need for a separate device to film events, trips, and priceless moments is long gone. The smartphone brought many devices to old school level or made them simply obsolete. Combine that with the fact that a smartphone is not as heavy as a 90s camera, and you understand why people can hold smartphones for hours just to document every single second of an event. A few years ago when I went to Coldplay's concert, I noticed how many fans were filming with their device. That didn't surprise me, what did was for how long they were actually filming. There were fans who felt the need to document every single song for at least a few seconds. When you add up all those minutes, you realize how much of the performance was witnessed through a screen. You're there, with all the people around you, listening to music and watching a performance, but then decide to experience all that glamour through that little screen. I totally understand when you want to record a moment or two with your smartphone, but why focus on documenting the whole thing? Not only that, some decide it's a good idea to share all these moments on social media right there and then. One post okay, but 10? I wonder how many times someone will look back at those videos. It's fun for the first few days, but anything that I film personally I don't look back anymore. In case I want to watch the concert back, I'll just go on Youtube and find a professional or at least a better quality video that I can enjoy. When you're witnessing a breathtaking one-of-a-kind event, you don't want to be thinking of tech for more than 5% of your time. Enjoy and savor the moment. Allow your eyes to witness the magic and be in awe of the energy that you feel around you, that you are participating in. Don't disconnect yourself from the collective experience. Don't disconnect from that moment you are sharing with your friends. When you use your smartphone, you don't experience that level of immersion your friends are experiencing. They will have both hands in the air to enhance the immersion, not because they want to document anything. Don't think too much about “I need to share this” or “I need to save this”! Take a few clips and put that device away. Do both yourself and the artist a favour: don't have it in your hands the entire time!

Scrolling is an addictive activity. The same applies to swiping on a dating app, you just don't know when to stop. You tell yourself okay this is the last post I see or the last person that I will swipe left or right. But somehow you're still scrolling or swiping 5 minutes later. Swiping on a dating app has a clear purpose: to connect with someone, however that connection may look like. When we scroll however, we don't really know what to expect. Will we see a post, a photo, a video, a quote? What will that say, why has that person posted that, what is someone random up to in their lives or at this very moment? That anticipation of a potential funny or shocking post makes us keep scrolling. We are curious human beings, and scrolling is a superb way to distract ourselves. You can escape yourself and your life, similar to when you're watching a TV show. Only with scrolling you don't know what surprises await you in that loooong news feed. It keeps going and going…. Now some social media platforms tell you when you've seen everything. Instagram for example tells you when you're all caught up. I have not encountered this message yet, but that's probably because I don't scroll often. Sadly we scroll and scroll when we are not alone. There are people around us, but somehow we care more for the online persona's of our friends, strangers, and influencers. The problem is not so much that we scroll when we're not alone, it's that we scroll too much while we should pay attention to our offline environment. We show more interest in the people who we wouldn't even call when we are in trouble than the people who really matter to us. It's easy to take the people for granted who you see every day. Friction happens in households which causes uncomfortable situations. Instead of discussing this friction, the discomfort incentives us to take our phone and scroll. To see how everyone else is doing in comparison to ourselves. We don't ask relevant questions anymore. We may ask if someone can do the dishes or how their day was, but it doesn't get deeper than that. Scroll offline more. Be interested in the lives of your nearest and dearest. Notice what they say and don't say. Are they doing fine? Are they happy? Are you helping them or supporting them with their endeavors? It's okay to check the virtual world and see what everyone decided to share with their friends and fans. Let's not forget though that our offline world needs as much scrolling as well. That level of curiosity. That level of interest. That level of care. The next step after noticing and paying attention is to offer any support or to simply acknowledge that person's efforts. Go for deeper questions. Deeper conversations. Show that person in the offline world that you're able to laser focus on them too. Gift them with your presence and attention. Whatever happens to the people in the virtual world won't have an immediate impact on you. Make sure that the people you're surrounded by, love, and cherish, feel supported by you. Let them feel comfortable, heard, and understood. Their happiness is your happiness. Take care of your own offline environment first, that's where you are most of the time after all.

https://www.socialmediabreakup.com/assign-certain-tasks-to-certain-devices/ Those days that we only have 1 screen to entertain ourselves with are long over. With the advent of the television we started to program ourselves that it is perfectly fine and normal to look at a screen for a couple of hours. Then the personal computer made its introduction which was great for processing, but too boring to use for many hours in a row. Soon afterward the internet become mainstream which changed everything! Now it was really fun to be on our computer! We could communicate with others and let magic appear in front of our eyes by typing a few words and a few clicks. In those days it was normal to write BRB aka Be Right Back. You couldn't bring the computer to the toilet, let alone outdoors. The flip phones and feature phones made their introduction and slowly we got used to looking at a screen in the open air. Not that we did this for long, a game of Snake could only last so long before it got boring. With the advent of the smartphone in 2007, it seemed we were ready to increase our focus on those little screens wherever we are. Of course, let's not forget the tablet which became a popular household product as well. So there is the television (with game consoles connected), laptops, computers, smartphones, tablets, handheld consoles… There are so many screens in our lives that would love our attention! It can certainly get messy. It's hard to focus on just 1 screen for 2 hours straight. Multitasking with 2 or 3 devices involved is the norm rather than the exception. The biggest problem maker is undoubtedly the smartphone. Write down what activities you are doing on that small device. Make a list. Now assign a few of those activities to other devices like the tablet or laptop. Do you want to play games? Assign this task to a game console, handheld console or tablet. Do you use Facebook a lot? Assign this task to a laptop. Do you email in the evening? Assign this task to a laptop or desktop. Outsource as many tasks as possible to other screens. Don't be all over the place with your activities. Don't play games on multiple devices. Pick 1 device and when you play on it, play well. Max out every activity and you do that by being mindful of it. Don't do a little bit of a lot. Be super conscious that you're going to read your emails now. Be super conscious that you will scroll and comment on Tik Tok now for 30 minutes. When you have assigned certain tasks, delete apps on your phone that are redundant now. Have you assigned Twitter to your laptop? Remove the Twitter app from your phone. Too hard? Then start by using your laptop to post tweets and your phone to read tweets only. Small steps are fine, as long as it is a step. You can make a list of activities for every device so you know exactly what to expect from yourself. You just want to pick your most popular device and outsource multiple activities to those other devices. The ultimate goal is to use your smartphone less so you can enjoy your offline life a lot more.

https://www.socialmediabreakup.com/use-email-filters-in-iphones-mail-app/ Smartphones are marvelous. Smartphones are fantastic and enhance our lives in such unique ways. There are so many opportunities for grabs because of our smartphones. The invention is so phenomenal, that we often get a little bit too excited… We want to use it all the time!! If only we would be able to regain control over our smartphone use! Luckily this is possible, that's what this website is all about! We don't need to put our phones away permanently. It's not necessary to live like a Luddite and be busy dodging and hating technology. What a relief that is! We just need to use smartphones and their apps more wisely, more effectively. In case we use an app multiple times a day, we want to know exactly how to use it effectively. You want to get to the settings for example and check all the available options. Let's talk about iPhone's Mail app and one simple feature: filtering. When you open the Mail app and you're in any box like your inbox, you see the filter option at the bottom left corner. When you tap that symbol with the 3 lines in it, you immediately see in the middle below Filtered By: When you tap there, you can select specific filters like emails that are Unread or emails that are Flagged. There are more filter options like Only from VIP or Only Mail With Attachments. When you tap done, you see the inbox with the filters applied. When you tap the filter symbol again, the list with all emails returns. By the way, You find the flag option by tapping the arrow icon at the bottom when you're in an email message. So many interesting options can be found in the apps we use the most, it is vital we are aware of those. So don't miss out on my videos and blogs to stay updated!

https://www.socialmediabreakup.com/use-privacy-shortcuts-facebook-app/ Facebook is known for its many (hidden) settings that are actually very important to be aware of! Facebook's mission is to connect you to the world. In other words, many default settings of your profile cater to this very mission. Is this a good thing? I don't believe it is. Facebook users should consciously decide when they make their content available to friends of friends, strangers, the entire world basically. They should realize how a setting may influence their own behavior on the platform. Many users don't really know or understand what people see and what is private. People create a Facebook account and simply copy other people's actions on the platform. You really do not want to see your profile filled with photos posted by others just because they tagged you. Some details you may want to keep between you and friends or even to yourself. Luckily there is a way to quickly go through all the privacy settings. You find a handy tool called Privacy Shortcuts in the settings of your Facebook profile. You tap the hamburger menu below and you go to Settings & Privacy. Now tap Privacy Shortcuts. Here you can check and modify the following settings: Privacy Location, who can see what you share, data settings Account security Change password, use two-factor authentication Ad preferences Which ad topics to see fewer, which ads to hide Your Facebook information Manage your information, see your activity log Safety Find resources for parents, help prevent bullying If you haven't checked your privacy settings yet in your account, make that your priority number 1 when opening the app. Whether you're in or out of your house, you make sure it's safe and secure right. Especially when it's bedtime. Treat your personal online environment similarly. Take your privacy seriously and take ownership of your own online space and presence.

https://www.socialmediabreakup.com/enable-two-step-verification-in-whatsapp/ I won't tap dance around this very important message: Whenever you can: enable the two-step verification option. There is no way around it. It is super important that you secure all your accounts, whether they are social media accounts, email accounts, messaging accounts gaming accounts, etc. Don't wait. Don't postpone this. Make hacking into your account as complex as possible. People will try to hack other people's profiles, and since you use yours a lot you better protect them. In this blog I will explain how to add this very important security step in WhatsApp: Go to Settings, tap Account, tap Two-step verification, tap Enable. Enter a six-digit PIN of your choice and confirm it. Enter an email address (you won't be asked to verify it) or tap Skip if you don't want to. According to WhatsApp, if you don't add an email address and you forget your PIN, you'll have to wait 7 days before you can reset your PIN. Now you'll need to enter your PIN when registering your phone number with WhatsApp again. In future blogs, I'll go over how to set up two-step verification aka 2-factor authentication in other platforms. However, do already check in your social media account and email accounts if this option is available (it probably is!).

https://www.socialmediabreakup.com/enable-ghost-mode-in-snapchat/ If you would go back in time to 1952 and tell people how much information we are sharing with another in our present time 2020, they may be thinking we are stalking each other. The good citizens of 1952 will probably think why we care so much about sharing so much info about ourselves. I can imagine that today there are still people who wonder: why do you share so much private information about yourself and your life? Why would I care? Why would you think that I care? Why would you care? The reality is that people love to show that they are interesting, that they matter. Sometimes the information can be useful in certain situations of course. What about the Snapchat Ghost Mode option? You have probably heard of Snap Map when you use Snapchat. On Snap Map you can see where all your friends are, you can see their locations. Not only can you see their location, but they can also see yours too. Unless you enable Ghost Mode! When you enable this option, you can choose who is allowed to see your location. You can choose the option Only Me, meaning your location won't be visible to anyone else on the map. You can choose a duration of 3 hours, 24 hours and Until Turned Off. Or you can choose specific friends to share your location with. The friends you select aren't notified when you choose them Or you can choose to share your location with all of your friends, including friends you add in the future. You find Ghost Mode by tapping the gear button in the top-right corner of the Map screen. Revealing your location doesn't need to be a problem and can be functional actually, but…does everyone really have to know where you are all the time? How do you really feel about that? You may want to start to be at least selective with who can see your location. Let's not make a habit of handing over our privacy so easily just because we can.

https://www.socialmediabreakup.com/increase-the-playback-speed-of-youtube-videos/ As they say: time is money. Time is valuable. You can lose money but you can always make money. Time passes, but we can never create more time or buy more time. The sand in the hourglass is moving downward, we just don't know how fast. Life could end in 60 years or tomorrow perhaps. We only know for sure that it will all be over one day. When you love, cherish and appreciate your life, that may be a sad thought. The power of this fact is that it gives us the opportunity to live our lives to the fullest. To live our lives mindfully and with intention. If we could speed up certain things to save time, would you do it? Well, luckily we can speed up YouTube videos! There are multiple speeds: 1.25, 1.5, 1.75, and 2. I suggest speeding the video to at least 1.25. You will still be able to understand everything the person is saying. If the person is communicating slowly, you may go for 1.5 or even 2. it is also possible to slow down the video if you're following a tutorial closely for example. In the browser, you find this playback speed option by clicking on the gear icon below the video. On your device, you want to tap the ellipsis (3 dots) to find the playback speed option. Of course, this option is not always recommended! When you listen to your favorite songs this option is an absolute no-go! But for any other type of content (even my videos that's fine :-D), you will definitely want to make this option a habit.

https://www.socialmediabreakup.com/dont-keep-hiding-online-because-of-fear-of-judgement/ The ego, that voice in our mind is super clever. It comes up with very good reasons why you should not do something. You might feel this burning desire to act on a particular idea you are having, but that voice has the power to quickly dismiss it. The voice tries to protect you. It does what it thinks is in your best interest. We just believe that story way too quickly. Ultimately it often comes down to fear. We want to learn, teach, inspire and act. As we know, social media is a fantastic vehicle to share your personality, brand and mission. That's the way I love to use social media! To use social media in such a way that it will enhance your life, not limit your life. When you use social media mindfully because there is a certain objective, I fully support that. If you use social media every day for multiple hours you must be good at it, at least better than I am I'm sure! While you're logged in anyway, why not strategize your social media skills? Are you thinking of creating makeup tutorials? Do you want to help people with social anxiety? Does it look fun to show people how certain games are played? Then go for it! When this voice seeps in to convince you not to show yourself, acknowledge that voice and do it anyway. People will never be able to go to the next level if they listen to that subconscious part of the brain. Consciously you may say out loud that you do want to sing songs and post on Youtube, but those subconscious beliefs may hinder you instead. The sad truth is that we don't even realize this and take it seriously. The best thing you can do is to talk back to that voice. Literally. Yes it might be scary, but I choose courage instead I don't want to live my life with regrets I deserve better in my life I refuse to play it small I'm ready to learn from my mistakes and understand that no one gets anything right the first time! I choose day one instead of one day No negative comments will hold me back There are literally 0 people in this world who have received only positive feedback. That just doesn't happen. Not on our planet. With the amount of misery that is unfortunately present in our society, we shouldn't be surprised really. Negative feedback can be expected. People will judge you. It's never collectively okay. You sit at home all day and people say you're lazy. You work on weekends and people say you're not taking care of yourself. People always have something to say. That's why it is imperative that you are in love with yourself. If you wait for the good comments to feel good about yourself, you're also going to believe the bad ones. Do it for yourself. Know why you're going to post 3 videos a day where you're street dancing. Let people say whatever they want. It's easy to criticize others when you're watching Stranger Things and playing it small in life. The people you want to surround yourself with will support you. They understand the struggles. They have similar ambitions, they want to pursue their fullest potential too. Don't underestimate yourself. Aim to impress yourself. Reframe “what if they reject me or don't like me” to “what if people like my dance moves and skills!” Now that's a thought that you want to stick to because there really is bliss on the other side of fear.

https://www.socialmediabreakup.com/dont-allow-the-google-effect-to-make-your-brain-lazy/ Having a supercomputer with you at all times offers astonishing advantages. It's not hard to appear as the smartest person in the room when you're allowed to use your phone. That small device can show you anything you want to know. It takes literally seconds to unlock your phone, open an app, and enter a query. Do you think you have a silly question? Guess what, there is already someone out there who wondered that very same thing and asked Google already! You can find an answer to any question, literally any question. How beautiful that may sound, this can also be a trap. If this supercomputer is 24/7 eager to do all the exploring, contemplating, and thinking for you, why on earth would you do it yourself? Unfortunately, the consequence is that people don't bother to remember anymore. If your device can be used in mere seconds, why taking the time to remember stuff? That's the trap of technology. Although technology is facilitating our lives in ways we never imagined before, we feel the unconscious tendency to invest less in our own power and capabilities. Imagine your leg is replaced by a robotic leg. With this robotic leg, you can run faster and jump higher. An amazing experience and advantage you would say! Nevertheless, you simultaneously stop relying on your own human leg. No effort is required anymore, your robot leg says I got this. When you take off the robotic leg, your human leg will be undoubtedly very weak. You haven't used it. That is what happens when we rely on tech too much. We outsource our own brains and power to technology. We become less self-reliant and more dependent. This phenomenon where you have the tendency to forget information is called the Google effect. Other names are digital amnesia and digital dementia, which basically mean a decline in cognition and short-term memory loss. We human beings are creative. We need time and space to reflect, contemplate, and brainstorm. These powers should not be taken over by any form of tech. Technology definitely enhances our lives, but it shouldn't bluntly take over our vital cognition-related tasks. Technology has the power to distract us, to lure us in, to program us, to tempt us, to make us think it sincerely cares for us. It doesn't. If it was up to tech, you will use your every precious minute utilizing it in one way or another. Don't underestimate your brain. Don't forget that it's a supercomputer too! Remain cognizant that if you don't utilize this supercomputer of yours….its power declines. When you don't use technology for a while, nothing happens in most cases. It's no big deal. It can wait for years to show off all the tricks it is capable of when you turn it on again. Your brain is another story though. Neural connections relating to any challenge need strengthening, neurons wire together fire together. Those neural pathways that are used when facing a challenge need to get more rigid so it becomes easier to do the task (which hopefully benefits you!). Train your brain to get better, because if you don't, it's going to excel at just being average. Use tech yes, use all its benefits yes, but don't go for your phone instantly when you need to know something. Contemplate. Remember. Pause and think. Let that brain motor operate on full power. Trust your own supercomputer. It can benefit your own life in ways any external supercomputer will never can.

https://www.socialmediabreakup.com/are-conspiracy-theories-worth-your-time/ You can find all sorts of information online. When you open YouTube to find a simple answer to a simple question, you never know what it could recommend you next. YouTube doesn't necessarily try to lead you to content that is an exact copy of what you're currently watching. What it tries to do is simply lure you into a potential rabbit hole that will keep you on YouTube for the next 3 hours. Topics that are recommended to you may indirectly relate to your (past) search queries or the current video you're watching. What often happens, is that the platform will offer you content that may come from “crazy town”. What I mean by that is you may encounter content that may be disturbing, unconventional, or controversial. This doesn't mean that the content presented is not true, but it can be “out there” for many viewers. Many of such posts are considered conspiracy theories. Nowadays many speak of conspiracy theories regarding the pandemic. I will be the last to confirm what is true or not true. This blog is not about what I believe or don't believe. I respect everyone's opinions and to be honest, I can't confirm if someone is right or wrong. There is no way for me to check what is factual and what's not. Of course, I may have an opinion, but it is just an opinion. This may be true for me, but I can't guarantee that it is the ultimate truth. Openmindedness is key which makes me open to hear about various perspectives people may have. My preference is to ask questions, why would someone think and say that, why would the person be so certain about what they are saying. So because I don't really bother myself to find out what is really true or not, I don't tend to dwell on such theories. There are many theories to be found online about all sorts of subjects, but I personally don't spend a lot of time reading them. Honestly, trying to find out the truth about me, what I'm about, what my weaknesses and strengths are is a full-time job in and of itself. For myself there is little time to focus on what others may have said or done, or better, I decide not to spend more time than I'm willing to invest on such matters. People may come to me and share their passions and interests which may be “conspiracy” theories, but I won't actively research them. I know that there is a lot going on that many (including me) don't know about, but it hasn't immediate effect on my life. The reason I don't talk about what may happen, or that someone is alive, or that some event didn't happen at all, is that when we do find out the truth, it won't affect my life so drastically probably. If the moon landing hasn't happened after all, well…I will still be living the same life. If (or when) the outcomes of such theories present themselves I doubt that they will influence my life in any way. There are exceptions however, there are so many theories about the pandemic regarding where the virus comes from and if vaccines are truly helpful. This is an example of a theory that would definitely impact many lives including mine if they were true. It's noble and encouraging that people voice their concerns and don't just believe what they see and hear on television. The flip side is you want to be careful that you don't find yourself in an echo chamber where one theory or opinion is voiced repeatedly. Stay open-minded, listen to different perspectives, think critically and logically, and make up your own mind. Just be careful that you don't spend so much of your precious time convincing others of your truth or that you stay stuck in the pursuit of the real truth. Whether you are right or wrong, you want to ask yourself if it will really matter in your life.

https://www.socialmediabreakup.com/idolize-yourself-instead-of-online-influencers/ Being a spectator of other people's lives is easy. We spend lots of hours finding out what other people did, bought, or said. The more uncomfortable we feel about ourselves, the more we tend to look external. When scrolling, we see envy-inducing posts from our friends and especially influencers. Posts that make us say to ourselves: wow I wish I had that! I wish I could do that! We go to our friends and discuss all those wonderful excentric lives we see online. Or we are by ourselves and get more and more miserable because of that large contrast. The more “success and happiness” you see online, the harder it looks to achieve that. Witnessing these differences between your own life and the lives of others is not a healthy activity. No wonder we compare and despair. The more we expose ourselves to their lives, the more impossible it feels to introduce radical change in our lives. Or at least it feels impossible to “achieve” a version of happiness and success that resonates with you. That's another problem. Influencers make us believe living the good life is happiness and success. We start to believe we need at least a million dollars to achieve some levels of happiness. Or that yacht, or the ability to fly around the world 20 times a year for example. The perception that is created about happiness and success is a distorted one. We don't realize happiness and success are not “achieved” at some point. It's very depressing when you compare your “normal and boring” life to theirs I get it. So you want to consciously decide to stop idolizing them. Stop looking at their profiles all the time. Unfollow them. All that energy you spend on idolizing them should be spent on activities that influence your own life. My strategy is to idolize my future self instead. I carefully think about what he is doing, with who he is hanging around, what he is saying etc. It's that vision that I look up to. It's that vision of my future self that I'm guided by. The “happiness and success” that is displayed online can be used as fuel or inspiration that's fine, but I don't get sad or obsessed by them without taking some form of action. When I see influencers chilling by the pool, I don't get jealous, dream, and wish for it, I get inspired. If I like what I see and it really resonates with me, I incorporate that swimming pool in the vision of my future self, surroundings, and circumstances. Never will I think that I can't achieve those results. Never will I think they are better than me. Never will I think that my destiny is to stay where I am. My focus is on my future self and I love to idolize him. What I love more though, is the journey to actually become him. Don't get jealous and down when you see posts of influencers living “the life”, get inspired and start by switching from scrolling to actually building that vision of your own future self.

https://www.socialmediabreakup.com/go-to-war-with-yourself/ This year (2020) I've read the book Can't Hurt Me by David Goggins. That's the beauty of reading books from different writers: The ultimate message is the same, but there are so many ways of explaining just 1 concept. David Goggins has his own way of inspiring and motivating which doesn't resonate with everyone. That's not the goal anyway, but I appreciate learning from all these different perspectives that lead to that 1 universal message: you can do it. One of the lessons I learned from the book, is to go to war with yourself. This may sound harsh, but it does make complete sense. At the end of the day, we are our own worse enemy. We are in our own way. We are confined by the walls that we build ourselves. It is important that we don't keep tap dancing around the truth. There is a voice in our mind that knows us very well. It knows what to tell us when we feel the motivation to do something scary. For a minute the feeling and thought of “yes I'll change my life!” excite us, till that voice takes over. That voice that says: that's too hard, you're too old, that takes way too much time, it's stupid anyway, this will go wrong that will go wrong, etc. It is very smart, we don't even realize that the voice merely wants to prevent us from failing. So it believes it is better not to try at all and convinces you of this very detrimental opinion. Go to war with this voice. Hear this voice and understand that you are not this voice. It's a voice that was programmed in you. It's a voice that was created during the imprinting, modeling, and mirroring stages of your life. This voice is sadly responsible for anyone not achieving their goals. True you can't be anything you want, but you can be everything you are. Therefore it is necessary to beat this voice. Override it. Don't listen to it. Let a different stronger uplifting voice speak louder. It takes time to override this voice, but with continuous momentum building and affirmations for example you can train yourself to dial down this detrimental voice drastically. Get real with yourself. Expand your mind and become more aware of your thoughts, feelings, and actions. You have thoughts and feelings, but you are not your thoughts and feelings. When you do start to take action, and you fail to meet your own created deadline, don't beat yourself up. You do not want to forget to be kind to yourself and appreciate you have taken those first steps. Let's use the smartphone as an example. When you plan to use your phone for one hour per evening instead of the 4 hours that you are normally using your device, the voice in your mind will try to take over your mind. It will make you doubt all the reasons which are responsible for wanting to use the device for one hour only in the first place. When your phone use is improving and you have used it for 2 hours instead of 4 or 1, don't beat yourself up. Talk to yourself as you would talk to a friend. Acknowledge that you are trying and that it may take time to reduce your tech use to 2 hours. Don't get angry and quit because “you will never succeed anyway” or “because well what's the point!” The opposite side of that spectrum is that you stay serious about your objective. So keep trying and doing. Stay focused and do your best to reduce your phone use to 2 hours. Take your mission seriously. Keep a level of strictness so you don't get complacent. The key here is to find that harmony between acknowledging your success and keeping in mind that you can and should do better. Letting yourself off the hook can result in victimizing yourself.

https://www.socialmediabreakup.com/look-for-the-benefits-while-experiencing-the-big-pause/ The pandemic is well underway and the situation is getting more hopeful with each week passing. Not everywhere, but in most countries. Hopefully, we can welcome 2022 with not only open arms but with the opportunity to feel the arms of society as well. This Big Pause as this pandemic is called, has changed the world forever. What is interesting is that lately, I hear many stories of people who want to continue to “run less” in their lives in the post-pandemic era. Of course, we will be more out and about when the pandemic is over, but we don't like this notion of being all over the place again. There are many lessons that we have learned or are still learning. We have learned how we behave in such circumstances, what we value, our coping mechanisms, who our friends are, what we want, who we want to be, what we regret, and more. This was a major advantage of the pandemic. Corona forced us to stop running. To stop being all over the place. To stop living on autopilot, to live unconsciously. Many of our patterns were severely interrupted. Many automatic programs were forced to halt. We had to “wake up” and get creative about how to deal with this new challenge. The question begs, what have you learned about yourself and your life? Are you proud of the way you handled this pandemic and how you spent time with your nearest and dearest? Have you kept your eye on the silver lining of the pandemic or were you constantly complaining about the situation? Have you created the opportunity to bond with others and yourself, or have you made many attempts to escape this current reality? There are some who started to work on that website or music they have been thinking about for some time, others have watched every single series on Netflix and Amazon Prime. It's hard to be with just ourselves, so experiencing this Big Pause has certainly made it uncomfortable for many of us, to say the least. When we flip the situation and try to find the silver lining, you can argue that there is no better time for introspection than now. The truth is you know who you are when no one is watching. Can you be honest and admit you might not be using your time so wisely? Or flip it, do you tell yourself you're doing a good job by doing the best you can in this pandemic? Don't worry too much about how much you are using your phone. Concern yourself more with how and why you are using your smartphone. As long as you are mindful of your phone use and happy with the activities you are taking on, you can pat yourself on the back. Small steps. You don't need to have your life changed drastically after the pandemic. Do make sure that once the pandemic is over, you already know how you want to live your life (including how you use your phone!), what is on your bucket list, and who you want to become.

https://www.socialmediabreakup.com/focus-on-being-one-version-of-yourself-in-the-offline-and-online-world/ The internet is a busy place. Social media is a busy place. There is always something happening in the virtual world. When there is a sense of direction of what you should be doing, this busy place is ready to embrace you. All of our peers are found on the internet, it just takes a few clicks to connect with them. You're in the loop now. No wonder we are slowly adapting ourselves to make our stay in the virtual world more comfortable. With this level of anonymity and “protection” cyberspace offers, it is easy to write or post anything we want. Who will know what is true and what is false right!? Social media has such a blast in luring you in on a daily (if not hourly) basis. Many take it so seriously, they feel they're in competition with everyone else. People sacrifice their time just so they can keep up with their “I'm interesting too” stories. They create a different persona, an online persona. When you create one with such a facility, what prevents you from creating another one? Heck, you can create as many persona's as you like! With so many places to visit online, you can create a suitable persona for each “location”. The problem that can occur is that we take all those versions way too seriously. It's exhausting taking care of just oneself aka the real version of you, let alone taking care of multiple versions of ourselves. It's tiring I can tell you! Creating these different versions has a particular objective, and sometimes we are not honest with ourselves about what those objectives are. We want to fit in, we want to be liked. While this is understandable, many however are forcing themselves too much to fit into a puzzle. They are trying to be a circle in a square. No wonder so many people are depressed, they are completely disconnected from themselves. This only gets worse when you neglect the offline version of you aka the real you. The more secure you are about who you are and what you are all about, the more comfortable you become about being that version of yourself, that only version of yourself. The clearer you become about who you are, what that “version” of you entails, the more opportunities you allow yourself to manifest that will shape and strengthen that version. You want to be comfortable with yourself wherever you are, in both the online and offline world. Don't impress others but impress yourself. Don't try to fit in somewhere where you have to let go of what makes you “you”. Embrace your own journey and expand on that. Be happy with yourself first instead of sacrificing yourself so others can be “happy” about you. There is no longevity in that. Worse, deep levels of unhappiness are found exactly there. One version of you that's enough, and a lot less tiring too.

https://www.socialmediabreakup.com/wanting-it-doesnt-always-result-in-enjoying-it/ We can write a loooong list of things, people and activities, we want to have, do and be. Although many of such desires should be pursued, not all of them will make our lives necessarily better. Personally, I love M&Ms yellow and my emotional side would love to eat them every day. My rational side however tells me I shouldn't because other wants and desires in my life are far greater and predominant than eating a bag of yellow M&Ms every day. For example, I want to feel good and healthy and look good and healthy. These desires outweigh the desire to eat chocolate or a Big King XL burger every day. Social media and phone use are other examples of activities I may want to do while I know I shouldn't. Using a smartphone is in and of itself, not a terrible activity of course. It can be very pleasant and there is nothing wrong with that. Nevertheless, going for your phone all the time like an obedient puppy chasing a stick is not a good idea of course. When a notification pings, we want to go for our device. After you've checked the notification, you may notice that it was in fact an unnecessary activity. Whatever it was your phone wanted to let you know, could have waited. Especially when you were focusing on a particular activity or person, checking your phone or social media should have been avoided if you want to stay in your zone or flow. It is key to make a clear distinction between what you want and what is good for you or what you enjoy. Yes, I notice I want to go for my phone sometimes but in the act, I stop myself because I know it is not going to be a pleasant experience. Or I realize that the person in front of me in the offline world is far more important at this very moment, anyone else in the digital world can wait. The act of phubbing needs avoidance and therefore when I'm with people, I think twice before going for my phone while I actually do want to check it out! (that reflex and those levels of curiosity can be strong!) But I just don't do it. Write down which activities you want to do that you should NOT be doing (at a particular moment). Get clear about such wants and stay vigilant when these wants to pop up in your mind at any given moment. Wanting something and enjoying something is not the same. Don't allow your emotional side to dominate your mind, give it some space to let the rational mind participate in the decision-making process. Get clear about what it is that you really want, so you're not going to sacrifice what you want most for what you want now.

https://www.socialmediabreakup.com/dont-focus-on-others-liking-you/ Personally, I never watch all the rolling credits after finishing a movie. When I do, I check mainly the names of the actors who played the main characters. You probably notice that after seeing the names of the main actors, you start seeing e.g. cab driver number 1 or gangster number 2. You don't see their names because they weren't important to the story. When we look at our own lives, we have to admit that we sometimes hold ourselves back because of people we don't even know. It is understandable you care what your nearest and dearest think of you, your actions, aspirations etc. But why do we care what waiter number 2 will think of us when we take action? Why staying in our comfort zone because of that fear of judgment, rejection, and being ridiculed by such people? An explanation does exist, it was important for our survival to be accepted by our tribe. The fear of being excommunicated was real. Other explanations are that we have suffered traumas regarding rejection, ridicule, and adopting coping mechanisms to deal with detrimental happenings in our household for example. We train ourselves to pursue being accepted, to avoid confrontation, to avoid rejection, to keep the peace. This unfortunately means we teach ourselves not to fly as we want in life. We learn to contract, to not be ourselves, and to please others at the cost of our own growth, mindset, and happiness. The whole notion of dealing with such unpleasant emotions is what makes us stay in our comfort zone. Not that we are conscious of this! No, of course the ego will come up with other stories why you should not take action! Reasons like: it is too hard, it will take too long, you're too old, you need lots of money for that etc. We are good at imagining devastating scenarios which will probably never happen. That is why it is vital to focus on liking ourselves first, to work on ourselves first. When your focus is to be liked by others, you will sacrifice your authenticity for attachment. Why would you want to spend time on social media to create posts so they can be liked by people who you might not even like? Forget about cab driver number 1 and backing vocalist number 3. Don't allow them to have such power over you. You will one day realize you spent too much time worrying about nothing. Like and embrace yourself first, any other like on social media is just a bonus.

https://www.socialmediabreakup.com/your-data-is-used-to-predict-and-control-your-behavior-on-social-media/ If you follow me for a while now, you probably know that you are not Facebook's customer. You're the product. The advertisers are the customers since they pay money for Facebook's services. If it wasn't SocialMediaBreakup that made you aware of this, it was probably the Netflix documentary The Social Dilemma. Facebook wants our data so they can sell that data to the advertisers and make money. That's why social media isn't free. We don't pay with money but we do pay with our time and data. Social media companies don't want our data just so they can sell it to advertisers though. Another reason is that the more they know about us, the better their prediction models become. The more they know about us, the better they can predict what we like or how we feel before we are aware of these interests and feelings ourselves! That's why the content you see in the news feeds is not always content you enjoy seeing. Nor is that content directly correlated to the content that you are currently consuming. The reason you see particular content is because people like you who consumed similar content that you are now consuming, were interested in that next piece of content that is now recommended to you. The algorithms know you will probably click on that content. You might not like that content or you might not know anything about that content, but it will somehow intrigue you. That's why social media rabbit holes don't always reflect what you know you're interested in nor what you're currently consuming. You fall into these rabbit holes because others like you did the same. What matters to such companies is that you simply jump into those rabbit holes, regardless of whether that content will be of any serious interest to you or not. That's how the content you are watching can escalate quickly. From losing weight tips you're suddenly exposed to content about anorexia or bulimia. Then suddenly you're witnessing a series of horror stories you never asked for or even thought about. But you keep watching, and that's all those companies care about. So be careful when consuming content on social media. Understand that the more time and data you invest in social media platforms, the better they know how to make you use your account for “just 5 more minutes”. Again, you are the product. Don't think you can't live without constant social media use, because you can. Those companies certainly need gullible people to increase their power and domination. So luckily you are not one of them (anymore).

https://www.socialmediabreakup.com/enable-dark-mode-in-your-messaging-apps/ 2 blogs ago I mentioned the idea to enable Dark Mode in your social media apps. When you enable Dark Mode, the white background changes to a black background and the font color changes from black to white. More apps are introducing the Dark Mode feature which is a positive development. Dark Mode is a feature that you can use as an “alarm”. When Dark Mode is enabled, you will realize that you should slowly reduce your phone use because it's getting late or the lighting conditions are not supporting long hours of scrolling. In the evening time, Dark Mode can remind you to switch from your smartphone to a laptop and finish any necessary tasks from there by using a browser. Messaging apps like WhatsApp also offer the Dark Mode feature now. You want to check in each app whether that feature is supported. As mentioned in a previous blog, it may be possible to connect the app's dark mode feature to the dark mode feature of your smartphone. This means that Dark Mode is automatically enabled in e.g. WhatsApp when Dark Mode in your device is active. Some apps may not show the Dark Mode option, but it might show the effects of Dark Mode when the feature is enabled in your device settings.

You have probably heard of the statement “don't get high on your own supply”. In Brian De Palma's Scarface from 1983, Tony Montana (played by Al Pacino) does eventually fail to live by that vital rule which is the beginning of his drastic decline. The smart dealers know how to make other people hooked on their products without getting hooked themselves. The more you are in control and aware of the dangers, the easier it becomes to stay focused on expanding your domination. While this is of course far from ethical, it's unfortunately not uncommon. The designers and creators of products like the iPhone and Samsung Galaxy and services like Facebook and Instagram, know very well about the risks involved. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates have introduced specific screen time rules for their children when they were younger. Other tech titans like Mark Cuban and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian are also aware of the dangers of excessive screen time and have introduced boundaries to support healthy screen use. While Silicon Valley is making sure their own families and friends aren't getting addicted to tech, the consumers who have no idea what they are up against are slowly being programmed unwittingly to become a slave to their device. Be smarter than that. Don't ignore how the designers, psychologists, and creators are using their own products and services. Let that wake you up. Way too many people are using their devices without ever thinking they can and should build and preserve boundaries for healthy screen use. The creators are getting richer and richer for a reason. Don't allow their products and services to make you a smartphone zombie (smombie). Wake up and take ownership of your smartphone and social media use. You don't need to become a Luddite but do become mindful of how, when, and why you use those products and services. In other words, don't get high on their supply. Sidenote, In the audio I mention that Alexis Ohanian and his wife Serena Williams have a son but they actually have a daughter!

https://www.socialmediabreakup.com/enable-dark-mode-in-all-your-social-media-apps/ Personally, I have dark mode enabled on my iPhone device. When you enable Dark Mode, the white background changes to a black background and the font color changes from black to white. In low light conditions, you want to enable this option. Looking at your screen will be less “painful”. We all know how we have to squint our eyes when looking at a white screen in a dark environment. It will be more “comfortable “to look at your screen when Dark Mode is enabled, although you will want to minimize your phone session of course! All the famous social media apps support the Dark Mode option except for Snapchat. While Dark Mode works in the Instagram app, you have to enable this option in your device settings. In the iOS settings, you find dark mode in ‘Display and brightness'. In the Android settings, you find Dark Theme/Night Mode in ‘Display'. All the other social media apps (Tik Tok, Twitter, Facebook) contain the Dark Mode feature in their own settings. Watch the video to find out where to enable Dark Mode in those social media apps. It is possible to connect the apps' dark mode feature to the dark mode feature of your smartphone. This means that Dark Mode will be automatically enabled in e.g. Facebook when Dark Mode in your device is active. Don't forget to schedule Dark Mode when possible! For example, the iPhone contains the option to schedule Dark Mode to Sunset to Sunrise. Now you won't have to enable or disable Dark Mode manually anymore.

https://www.socialmediabreakup.com/improve-your-opinion-about-yourself/ It's interesting how we find it so important what people think of us. No wonder social media is so popular. We truly value other people's opinions of us. It goes so far that we carefully craft posts and photos with the objective of gaining as many likes, hearts, and comments as possible. Unfortunately, that need for acceptance that we are feeling, can often make us invisible in this world. A sad development is that we often sacrifice our own authenticity for attachment. We forget about what we truly want, who we truly are, and who we truly want to be. Working on improving the way we see ourselves is completely neglected because of that desire to be liked by others. We dislike ourselves and think when others like us, we will solve the lack of self-confidence problem. “If others like me, then well yeah there is a solid reason why I can like myself!” Somehow it immediately makes sense to like oneself when others like us. “Of course you like me because I'm a likable person!” But when others don't like us or there is no evidence of others liking us, any levels of self-esteem we have can erode. The key here is to put more work on improving the way you think of yourself and the way you talk to yourself. Instead of prioritizing other people's opinions of you, you should prioritize your own opinion of yourself. Relying on other people's opinions in order to feel good about yourself is a terrible idea. You don't know how long someone will like you or if they actually do like you! Outsourcing your own happiness is a very bad idea period. Like yourself first! Dissect your authenticity and think carefully about what you like or like to do. Don't think about what others may think, everyone has an opinion. That will never change. Don't become invisible in this world. A very good reason to disconnect from social media for a bit is to experiment and take on activities just for yourself. Develop yourself and keep promises you make to yourself, how small they may be. When you focus on yourself and the story you tell yourself about yourself, you will come across as a more confident person. Confident people are admired because they don't wait for others to feel good about themselves. They just feel. They wait for no one. Become someone who knows your weaknesses and strengths. Know thyself. Become someone who is not wasting time to impress people who don't even care about you. Learn to like yourself. Any other like on whatever social media platform you use is merely a bonus.

https://www.socialmediabreakup.com/imagine-your-smartphone-is-a-human-being/ The smartphone is a powerful device. We keep thinking we are its master while unfortunately, it is often the other way around. The smartphone essentially is our master and we are its slave. We shouldn't be too surprised, the smartphone is basically our new appendage. We bring it everywhere, literally everywhere with us. No wonder our smartphone is having the time of its life. There are hundreds of daily opportunities for our smartphones to shine. The behavior our smartphones is depicting is criticized often, but we shouldn't forget that we rarely leave the device alone. Let's now change the way we see our devices, let's compare our most popular device with a human being. If a human being would treat you the way your device is treating you, would you accept that? Would you be okay with that? If a human being demands your attention immediately regardless of where you are or what you are doing…would you be fine with that? Would you place your attention immediately on that person or would you at least perceive that behavior as rude? You probably won't be happy with that behavior. If you don't know the person, there is no way you would accept that. There is no way we would put up with such behavior. What about perceiving your device as a family member? With family members, we often adapt ourselves to specific behavior because well..they are family. We may not like specific attitudes, but we accept them because we can't just turn our backs on them. What we can do is setting boundaries! When a specific attitude is displayed we can show our dissatisfaction and inform the family member why we don't appreciate that. Since the smartphone is a device that we keep using (as we stay in contact with a family member despite the fact there may be little in common), it is best to compare our devices to a family member. We love the person but boundaries have to be implemented. Like you know your family member, you want to get to know your device as well. Learn about all its features and options you can enable or disable. Be mindful of how your smartphone is treating you and then carefully envision how you ideally want your smartphone to treat you. With that in mind, you carefully decide when you want to be on your phone, when it is allowed to disturb you and how you want to use it. Use the available settings so you know exactly what to expect from your device. When the phone is configured, it will be easier to tolerate it. While you can make a family member clear about your boundaries, it is normal to simply focus on how you react. It is not up to us to change people and while we can try to help someone see why specific behavior is not appreciated, there is no guarantee that the family member will actually change. The only thing that we can change though is ourselves. So sometimes we have to adapt ourselves and lower our expectations in order to avoid any form of confrontation. In every family there are issues, it's normal. Don't be so kind and considerate with your phone though!! Your phone can't talk back and doesn't have any feelings, so show no mercy for the sake of your own concentration, sanity, and wellness!

https://www.socialmediabreakup.com/generate-energy-curiousity-and-excitement/ Most of us know the saying: in order to be interesting, be interested When I ask you: what excites you in life? Do you have a clear answer? Not everyone does. We spend a lot of our time on media, activities, and people, but do they make us happy? Do we feel good about the way we spend our time? Are the topics we talk most about on a daily basis, topics that put a smile on our faces? Not always. Energy and passion. When are you showing both? The more you find topics that energize you like board games, starting a collection, or gardening, the less power your smartphone will have over you. The more topics are screaming for your name, the more your phone's desperate plea for your attention will subside. Another important effect of having something excited to think about is that your conversations will change. We love to share our passions, hobbies, and interests with one another, we don't like to keep these to ourselves. So the more intention and direction your conversations have, the less you occupy yourself with your smartphone, or use your smartphone mindlessly. The opposite of living a dynamic life is a static life. And with dynamic, I don't mean necessarily being out and about and busy. What I mean is that you have at least occasional novel conversations. Conversations about topics you know both little and a lot about. What is required is curiosity and mindfulness. In order to notice things, you need to be looking more around you. You need to be more mindful about what's happening around you. Aside from your own interests, look at what other people's interests are. What are they doing, what are they talking about so much? Sometimes a passion can be infectious, I notice that when a good friend likes a particular movie, song, or activity, I start to like it as well. Not always of course, but at least a certain level of interest in that subject grows inside of me. Many times I like to take on that activity as well, just to get a feeling of why this is so exciting to the person! Personally, I like to ask questions about why the person likes it, what is it about that topic that makes the person light up with a big smile on his or her face. Great conversations start happening when you show this level of curiosity. We often ask questions about how is work going, or what someone's opinion is about the corona vaccine or elections for example. But what about more deep personal questions aside from their interests? Rarely do we ask one another if we are happy or if we are coping okay with this pandemic for example. When you show curiosity about their interests, passions, and feelings, you tend to have conversations that are more meaningful, helpful, and educational. So be more mindful about your passions and about creating passions, plus getting curious about other people's passions. Again, in order to become interesting, be interested. Be a person who can talk about all sorts of topics and who is open to diving into new worlds that others love to explore.

https://www.socialmediabreakup.com/approach-your-partner-wisely-when-he-or-se-uses-social-media-too-much/ There are many stories of couples that are obsessed with their screens. When both partners are mindlessly scrolling, swiping, browsing, and typing without any real awareness, then this (worrying) behavior won't be discussed in depth. However, when one partner “awakens” and becomes conscious of his/her useless activities on social media and devices while the other partner isn't, then that can become a problem. How can I convince my partner that he/she is spending way too much time on screens!? That's a question I hear often. What is important to remember, is not to attack your partner. Start with your own behavior first. You are aware of your actions now, so show your partner that you are perfectly capable of locking your phone and leaving it locked for a while. Take initiative and propose any plans and activities to take on together. At the end of the day, the problem is not necessarily that your partner is on his/her device, but that you feel that your partner isn't paying enough attention to you. You will want to discuss these issues instead of placing the focus on technology. With your control over tech, your partner won't be able to say that you're a lot on your device too. So by taking control of your screen time first, you will avoid any unnecessary discussions about your own screen use. When you see that your partner keeps using the smartphone excessively, track his/her screen time, or ask your partner to track his/her own screen time. Oftentimes we are not aware of how much time we waste on screens. Numbers speak for themselves, so focus on tracking your partner's screen time, preferably by both of you. You can use Screen Time, Digital Wellbeing, or apps like Freedom, Moment, and RescueTime. When the behavior continues, share with your partner your pain and what you miss in the relationship. Again, do not attack your partner's screen time, show empathy for his interests in any activities he is taking on. The problem is not that he/she is taking on those activities, but that he/she loses himself/herself in the smartphone. When you see your partner is willing to set boundaries and would like to work on habits and routines with you, be ready to introduce multiple strategies that will help you both. You are probably using some of them already since you've already controlled your screen time! You can inspire your partner by sharing your strategies with them and how your focus on the relationship is motivating you to be the master of your smartphone. The fact that you are in a relationship gives you both an advantage since you both have automatically an accountability partner! Having an accountability partner can help one drastically to stay on point with the implemented strategies. To recap: Show exemplary behavior Share your feelings and concerns Track and present your partner's (shocking) amount of screen time Share ideas on how to set boundaries for your devices Share constructive ideas on how to focus more on connection and less on devices When your partner still uses his/her device a lot and doesn't really seem to care about you, your feelings, and your relationship, then there might be a root problem that needs to be addressed. Continue to value yourself as a person and be clear about what you accept and what you don't accept. Sometimes an extreme happening needs to occur before a partner finally wakes up and understands the grand prize (you) should not be taken for granted.

https://www.socialmediabreakup.com/most-push-notifications-are-far-from-important/ We all know that feeling when a notification comes in. We feel that anticipation of what could be… It's a joyful feeling (because of the release of the neurotransmitter dopamine). Who has sent me a message! What does the message say! That feeling of excitement when a notification comes in is known to us all. The notification is a surprise waiting for us to discover. The problem is that most notifications are not life-changing at all. Most don't even make our day or ignite any uplifting emotion. On the contrary, most notifications are simply….pointless. When push notifications of most apps are enabled, we get disturbed for no special reason at all. Whatever we do, we stop the activity because we hear a sound or feel a vibration of a notification coming in. Then when we check the notification and see an update or message that is not urgent. There goes that exciting feeling of anticipation that just fizzles out. Disable the push notifications of most apps. Don't let your device fool you something exciting came in that has to be checked ASAP, when in fact 9 out of 10 times the update is not that exciting at all. So when there are apps left that have your authorization to push notifications to you, you will at least know what kind of notifications to expect and where they come from.

https://www.socialmediabreakup.com/dont-focus-on-educating-online-haters-and-bullies/ While we can easily expose ourselves on social media, it is daunting to show some levels of vulnerability. Posting photos online is not the hard part. There is an endless number of filters and effects you can apply to make that photo look like it came right out of a magazine. Revealing ourselves, our business, interests, and passions are more challenging for most of us. While social media offers us interactive platforms for us to shine, there are certain “risks” involved. Social media is the arena and we can easily enter that arena. While people (the spectators in the arena) are watching us, they can judge us and interact with us immediately. That is the “risk” people worry about. Only it isn't a risk, it is in fact inevitable. There will be bullies, haters, and trolls. As the saying goes: you will never be criticized by someone who is doing more than you. You'll only be criticized by someone who is doing less. So you want to prepare yourself to ignore most negative comments that will be posted. Other strategies aside from simply ignoring the haters, is to comment on their comments. Posters won't always expect that and will be surprised their comment got an actual reaction from you. As a result, some may admit that their comment sounded a bit harsh, or they may at least show some respect for your courtesy. Sometimes a comment looks very critical, but the poster didn't mean it that way. It's good to give posters the benefit of the doubt sometimes. When you reply to a comment, make sure the comment is not obviously posted to hurt you. Comments which have the obvious purpose to hate on you should definitely be ignored. You will not want to defend yourself or to educate them on how they ought to behave. That will be pointless. Don't forget about the option to block a person who is spamming and troublesome. Personally, I've heard of people who took the time to send a private message to someone who posted a hateful message saying basically: It seems you're currently dealing with particular issues, I wish you all the best and hope you feel better soon. Definitely not recommended for every single negative comment of course, but it's an interesting option nonetheless. Remember that even when you post videos of babies laughing, there will be haters. It's part of the game. Just make sure they won't stop you from doing what you are meant to do.

Many of us walk with our phone chargers on us. The idea of walking around with a dead phone is unfathomable. What would we do with ourselves if the battery of our phones ran out!? That feeling of nomophobia (no mobile phone phobia) is one we are eager to avoid at all costs. Human beings can be very lazy, but wow can we be disciplined when we really really want something! When we want to walk around with our devices safely charged, we make sure that is exactly what will happen! Unfortunately, we lack that form of discipline when it comes to more important matters in our lives. Like our own health battery. How is your sleep hygiene? Do you prioritize your sleep? When it comes to our own battery, we seem to care less about that. Can you imagine if we use that same discipline we show to our phones? With such discipline, we make sure we sleep on time without any distractions. Ironically, it is our smartphone that often prevents us from sleeping unperturbed. We even sleep with our phones underneath the pillow….speaking of prioritizing our precious devices and their apps that are making other people millions! When your smartphone is running on 20%, you're very careful with the way you use it. You won't use your device to its fullest capability. What about yourself then? When you don't charge your own battery properly, what can you expect from yourself? You won't be operational at your fullest capacity either. You can't maximize your day if you only run on 30% battery from the first hour you wake up. Stop caring more for some device than for yourself. Once your own battery is charged, you can make wiser decisions on your social media and phone usage as well by the way. Don't prioritize your phone. Take care of your own health battery first.

Every single activity you take on, how petty that might be, will one day be your last. We live our lives like it is something we have to get through. Do we really appreciate what we have now in this very moment? As Albert Einstein once said, “There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” The more we take for granted what we have in our lives, the more we see our lives as nothing is a miracle. Unfortunately, many of us act this way until a bad event takes place in our lives. When something dreadful happens, we instantly wake up. That event shakes us out of our zombie-like state of mind. Like we are in this constant trance which we awaken from as soon as there is devastating news. We are then reminded that: Life is actually finite Nothing lasts forever All good things come to an end My life wasn't actually so bad! The key is to experience such an awakening before anything bad happens. And bad things will happen! We will receive bad news sooner or later that will impact our lives forever! You know it, I know it. You just don't want to start realizing what you have when that happens. Therefore the practice of appreciation is a powerful one. Get out of this daily trance and look at your life from a macro level. Are you displaying gratitude? Do you show your loved ones how much you appreciate and love them? Can you find those moments of happiness once you realize that at this very moment, of all the 200 awful events that can happen in your life, none of them are happening? Practice gratitude and show appreciation for your life. Your life is finite. It will all be over one day. You just don't know when. The more you start valuing your life, the easier it becomes to set boundaries for your phone. It will become easier to say no to social media. You will become more mindful of your time. You will stop wasting your precious time on people you know nothing about or who don't care about you. Therefore wake yourself up every day for at least a few minutes. Remind yourself on a daily basis where you are and what you have accomplished. You don't want to have any regrets in your life once that devastating event is about to take place or is taking place…

The wiser we become, the more we realize that experiences bring us long-term happiness, not gadgets, items, or things. We can experience with the help of things, but “a thing” in and of itself won't bring long-term happiness, only short-term. Now that we are home a lot, we can find happiness and enjoy our aloneness when we buy a Playstation 5, an Amazon Prime subscription, or Everdell the board game for example. However, the pandemic has forced us to stay indoors for a pretty long time, which makes us long for physical connection. We use social media a lot more now because of the pandemic, so we can experience some form of connection. Hopefully, we realize at the same time that connections are just as important as experiences for long-term happiness. Unfortunately, while we may be liked by “friends”, we may find it hard to find just one person to confide in. We may appear to be connecting a lot online, but whether you feel comfortable revealing your authentic self is another question. Loneliness comes from a lack of true connection. Not just physical connection, but mainly the lack of connection with someone who knows you. I always say that I prefer to be alone than to be surrounded by people with who I can't relate. By that, I mean people who don't share my values or people who communicate superficially and talk only about themselves. So when we feel we are not being understood and can't be ourselves while engaging with other people (online) who don't really care about us, the feeling of loneliness worsens. We want to matter. We want to belong. We want to be acknowledged for who we are. That feeling is an experience. Being in someone's presence who truly knows us is an experience. Sharing activities, novelty, emotions, and feelings with others is an experience. Therefore, another reason we feel alone is the lack of purpose, meaning, and excitement. We want to contribute to this world, in one way or another. If we are doing activities that we can't stand, we feel useless. We feel as we don't matter at all in this world. Ultimately we want to find out what we are good at, so we can do a lot of that. By contributing to the world in a way that puts a smile on your face, you will feel a sense of purpose and meaning. You feel acknowledged by your peers, community, and society. As you can guess, seeing and witnessing the results of your contribution is an experience as well. Seeing your work come to fruition is an experience that brings you joy, happiness, and fulfillment. Combine such feelings with feelings of true connection with people who care for you and vice versa, and you have a recipe for long-term happiness and fulfillment. The pandemic is challenging in many ways. One thing is for sure, when the pandemic is over, we should all embrace the outdoors and appreciate all the opportunities we can then all enjoy again.

Afraid that someone will access your WhatsApp when your phone is unlocked? You can add an additional layer of security to your WhatsApp account. What about the possibility of only accessing your WhatsApp with your face or finger? Depending on the availability of the option Touch ID or Face ID on your device, you can make this happen. When you enable the Screen Lock option in the WhatsApp settings, you'll need to use Touch ID or Face ID to unlock Whatsapp. Keep in mind that it's still possible to reply to messages from notifications and answer calls if WhatsApp is locked. Listen to the audio and learn where you can enable the Screen Lock option.

When I was very young I watched Tom & Jerry, Cartoon Network cartoons like Dexter's Laboratory and Johnny Bravo, and Hanna-Barbera cartoons like the Flinstones and the Jetsons. Many funny moments stuck with me, including a shoulder angel and shoulder devil bickering about what the character should or should not do. This stuck with me because we all face situations where 2 voices start speaking in our minds. One voice says: no don't do that, you shouldn't be doing that, and the other voice says: yes do it do it, you deserve it, it won't do you any harm! The latter is very good at making excuses. You were planning not to order take away tonight? Well, that shoulder devil can come up with 100 reasons why tonight is the best evening to actually order take away! The same applies to our phones. One voice says “stop using your phone”, but the other voice says: “5 more minutes doesn't hurt anyone!” We are in a constant battle in our minds. We know better, but because of that shoulder devil, we often don't do better. What I've taught myself, is to make the angel and devil befriend one another. They are both right, but the question is when. You want to plan your day and schedule your time in such a way that the devil and angel won't argue over petty matters. All activities and decisions for that day should be clear in advance. That's why it's important to plan your leisure time, entertainment, and social media time. If you're using social media a lot, and you want to cut your use drastically, you will notice that the shoulder devil will appear often because he is not used to seeing you with such new intentions. The shoulder devil doesn't understand why you suddenly use social media or your smartphone less. You want to prepare yourself for his frequent appearance. You do that by strengthening your shoulder angel. Feed the shoulder angel with information such as why it is so important to reduce your social media usage. Be clear about what's at stake here, how is social media impacting your life adversely? How do you want to see your relationship with your device and social media? How do both fit in your desired lifestyle? Answer these questions carefully. The more these answers are clear to you, the more intel your shoulder angel has to overpower your shoulder devil. Both voices will always exist and can appear randomly. What's important is that we are ready for both voices and that we are clear about when an activity is or isn't allowed.

A strategy you can introduce is to declare out loud to yourself why you are going for your smartphone. Your actions should be intentional. So be clear about why you go for your phone and what apps you are planning to use. If you are in a situation where you are not alone and you don't feel comfortable making such declarations out loud, think them in your mind. This doesn't need to take long. Such declarations will help you to create clarity for yourself. If possible, also declare out loud for how long you are planning to stay on your phone. If you said to yourself you will be on your phone for 5 minutes but wish to stay longer, that's fine. Just tell yourself (out loud) that you want to stay e.g. 20 more minutes on your device and why. When you're alone you want to be making these statements out loud which will make you super aware of your intentions and phone use. Don't allow your phone to eat you alive, remain intentional and keep in mind: it's okay to be on your phone for 1 hour, as long as it doesn't come as a surprise and you're okay with that.

We are very ambitious when we think about introducing change in our lives. Oftentimes we declare bold statements like cutting our social media use by 50% or using a dumbphone that will replace our smartphone. These declarations are made with the best of intentions of course. Unfortunately, we often underestimate the willpower that is required to execute. That why it is important to declare small steps, how easy they may be. On paper, they may not seem hard to execute but it's all about consistency. Can you take that “small step” consistently? Can you enforce boundaries consistently as you intended? When you say you want to do a digital detox, start introducing small digital detoxes. Mini digital detoxes. Think first of the activities you wish to continue without your phone nearby or in your hand. Allocate a special place or room where you leave your device before taking on that activity. So when you go read a chapter of a book, know where to leave your phone in advance and place it there. After you're done reading that chapter, get your phone back (if you wish). So initially you will be phoneless for 20 minutes, 30 minutes, depending on the duration of the activity. That's how long those mini digital detoxes should last. When you have mastered to be phoneless during those activities, you can start thinking about periods of time where normally nothing has been planned yet. Now we are talking about a mini digital detox of 3 hours or 4 hours for example. This will require more preparation because you will need to know what your replacement activities will be. You want to be clear about which screens are allowed and which ones are off-limits. The next stage will be a digital detox that lasts an entire evening or an entire day even. Nevertheless, start first with the (small) activities you do on a daily basis where your phone likes to keep you company without asking for permission. Master those moments of being phoneless first before transforming any bigger aspirations into realization.

Many times I've said it: I understand why many people are reluctant to delete all social media apps. There are many reasons why one wants to keep using social media apps. Although it is a strategy to simply delete at least 1 social media app, let's try something else. Game apps have no reason of being on your phone if you complain about your phone use. So delete those. Your brain can be as creative as it wants to justify that game app on your smartphone, but eventually all those reasons can be (easily) debunked. There are other (digital) activities that can replace game apps. So no excuse there. Other apps you want to delete are news-related apps. There is so much news out there. A large number of events are happening 24/7 that you really do not need to know about. At least not instantly. If we allow psychos to control our time just because they have done something unfathomable, we are in trouble. Why? Because there are too many of them out there sadly and unfortunately. Bad people will keep doing bad things. This won't change. So do yourself a favour: claim back your control and delete news apps. I'm not saying to not be informed about what's happening in the world, but don't use those apps. Those apps invite you to be on your phone. They invite you to spend a large portion of your day on them in case you are bored. Don't let those apps entice you to unlock your device. Use your laptop or if you must, the browser app to stay up to date. You don't need an account for those news apps, so there is no point in having them installed. By using the browser version you will be more conscious of your action. If those apps are installed, you will have opened them without any hesitation. So spare yourself the time and temptation, and remove those news apps. Focus on content, people, and activities that put a smile on your face. Don't allow any app to change your positive or neutral state of mind into a negative one. No one should have that power, let alone an app.

The idea to disable all your social media push notifications can be daunting. How would you know instantly what has happened in your account right? Of course, we can debate about the importance of being constantly up to date, (and I do talk about this in many other videos), but let's focus now on that feeling of FOMO. Let's acknowledge that for the avid social media user it is hard to simply disable all the push notifications. In a perfect world when one disables push notifications, the apps are rarely opened. Why opening the app if your phone ceased to inform you about some activity that took place right!? Well…from experience I can say disabling push notifications can result in opening the app a lot more (initially). Because of that FOMO, you will constantly check the app to spot any activities that you might have missed. Now instead of the phone notifying you, you have to get active to find out. So disabling notifications is unfortunately not that perfect solution that ends any form of social media or phone addiction abruptly. To end these impulsive “I need to check my apps again!” actions, I suggest setting alarms every 30 minutes in the evening for example. So once the notifications are disabled, you set the alarm which allows you to check your apps when it goes off. 30 minutes will initially feel like 2 hours but remain patient! That alarm will go off. This strategy only applies to checking out what you have missed. If you stay on your device for the next 30 minutes, well…then setting the alarm for every 30 minutes will be pointless. Just check what you have missed in your popular apps and lock your device again after a maximum of 5 minutes. You can start with 1 social media app first, before disabling all your social media push notifications at once. From there on slowly increase 30 minutes to one hour or 2 hours for example. Train the skill of patience. Acknowledge that you really want to go for your phone. That's okay and understandable. You really have programmed yourself to run for your phone. After acknowledging that feeling, reshift by explaining to yourself it won't take long before that alarm goes off and why you have disabled those notifications in the first place: because you want to reduce your screen use. Show your device who's really in charge.

Airplane mode and Do Not Disturb have both their unique benefits. We all know we have to enable airplane mode when we're on the plane and it is about to take off. Nowadays we are sometimes allowed to enable Wi-Fi so there is access to the internet up in the air. Nevertheless, no one can call us and we can't call anyone since there is no connection to the mobile network (all IM apps aside). When you're on your device because you are busy reading or busy with any other activity that doesn't allow any disturbance or distraction, airplane mode is a good option to enable (with Wi-Fi disabled of course). With airplane mode configured this way, no one can call you through the mobile network nor the internet. The Do Not Disturb (DND) feature is advantageous for similar reasons but should be used differently. DND is a great feature for when you are busy with an activity that is not connected to your phone at all. When you're busy meditating, writing, or studying, you will want to enable Do Not Disturb. Now all notifications and calls coming in will be silenced. The feature is more intelligent than airplane mode because in both iOS and Android you can create a list of people who you allow to “disturb” you. So when people from this list call you, those incoming calls won't get silenced. In both operating systems it is also possible to allow repeat callers, so when anyone calls you twice within a short period of time they will get through as well. Normally when you lock your phone, DND is then enabled. However, there is an option that has DND enabled even while you're on your phone aside from when it's locked, so you won't see any notifications or incoming calls coming in. Nevertheless, you can still get distracted by the mere fact that the internet is right there waiting for you to be used. When you're on your device reading for example with DND enabled, you still have access to the internet which can easily entice you to open an app or two. So use the DND when you're going to sleep or when taking on any activities that demand your concentration. Any alarms that are set when DND or airplane mode is enabled will still go off by the way! Another option that might be interesting is to disable mobile data. This effect essentially turns your smartphone into a dumbphone. There is access to the mobile network so you can call anyone and vice versa, but there is no connection to the internet. There is a way to access the internet but you will need a WI-FI connection. If there is no Wi-Fi connection, there is no internet. So if you want to use your device as a dumbphone and want to train yourself to use the internet (and all your popular apps) mindfully and sporadically, then disable mobile data aka cellular data in the settings. Allow all 3 features to help you limit your phone use. Give both yourself and your smartphone an occasional break.

In an earlier blog, I mentioned how time is our most valuable currency. The more we become aware of this, the more we won't allow ourselves to scroll our lives away. There will be a day where we wish we had more time. If we can envision ourselves in the future looking back on us, that future version will probably say: why o why did you spend your time like that!? Our future selves are not “blind” anymore and can judge our current selves easily of course. Nevertheless, many of us live our lives like we will live another 500 years. Especially teenagers think this way, which is no surprise of course. We all were more in the moment, enjoying our lives and learning and experiencing on the way. The older we become, the more we should be asking ourselves: am I spending my time or am I investing my time? Since we become more conscious of our mortality, we often tend to care less about what other people think. We realize this is a waste of time, we realize that at the end of the day, society doesn't really care if we live or if we die. Another lesson that we learn is to say “No”. It becomes easier to reject others because again, a “Yes” will require time and energy. When you ask yourself: am I spending my time or investing my time in all honesty, you may want to change your activity or shift your behavior in that activity. Being productive is not the only way to invest your time. When you watch Stranger Things with your spouse and you're both fully immersed in it, then you're sharing an experience and investing in your relationship. This is an example of investing your time. When you're on your phone instead, then well…you're just spending your time. Investing your time means that you engage in activities that bring you meaningful rewards. So let's take the example of your phone and social media use. How are you using your time? Are you investing your time by participating in groups that may help you with any challenges or by building your online brand? Or are you spending your time by doomscrolling and comparing and despairing? Be mindful of your time. 24 hours a day is a lot, unfortunately we don't know how many sets of those 24 hours are available to us in the future.

In a previous blog, I wrote about the brain chemical dopamine. Dopamine is the reason why we can't wait to run to our device when it demands our attention. Nothing can stop us when we want to grab our phone. Our full focus is immediately on our device. Since the reward center in your brain releases dopamine in response to pleasurable experiences, it's one of the reasons why people get addicted to particular behavior and substances. Eating good food, having sex, creating art, and a range of other pleasure happenings can trigger similar responses from your brain's reward center. What's unfortunate, is that we get more dopamine hits from activities that don't take any effort. Many of us go for instant gratification instead of actually working to get results. We indulge ourselves in too many stimulating things like porn, drugs, junk food, binge-watching shows and all produce a huge amount of dopamine. This can result in a lack of motivation to go out there to find an actual partner for example or to simply get to work. The problem is that experiencing all those dopamine hits makes us believe we have accomplished something, whether that is liking a post or posting a photo for example. We become less motivated to go to the gym, to start writing, to basically put ourselves in uncomfortable situations where the reward is not achieved immediately. The fact that it is easy to go for instant gratification is not the only reason by the way, oftentimes we mask our pain with pleasure. That's why experts recommend dopamine fasts where they learn not to expect instant rewards. At the end of the day, the level of satisfaction is so much higher when you have accomplished something you have worked for with your own blood, sweat, and tears. No wonder people feel much more appreciative and happy when they have “earned” success, rather than having success handed to them on a silver platter. Don't choose the easy way in life, that's only temporary. You might enjoy yourself at that moment but afterward, you often feel worse than before. Such choices are not beneficial in the long term. Delay gratification and live your life for the long haul.

The battle that we constantly fight our entire lives, is the one between our shoulder angel and shoulder devil. I never forget those cartoons like the Looney Tunes and Tom & Jerry where you see the shoulder angel and should devil quibbling about what the character should be doing. Fascinating. That's exactly the battle we face every day. We may train ourselves to listen mostly to our shoulder angel, but there will always be moments where the shoulder devil triumphs. We are not perfect. Take those moments where the light bulb above your heads turns on, which leads to aspiring ideas such as reducing your social media time or cutting the daily Fanta consumption. In those moments you tell yourself: “I'm going to delete Facebook!” or, “I'm going to quit social media for a week!” A few hours later you're on social media without a trace of those thoughts. We're good at convincing ourselves not to follow through. That shoulder devil knows what to tell you. It knows how to say: “it's okay, use social media for 10 minutes, your friends are waiting for you, it's fine”. That's why you may want to use an accountability partner when you're serious about reducing your screen time. If you have a partner or someone in your household who has the same aspirations as you have when it comes to screen time, you can help each other drastically. Make an agreement and be clear about your objectives. Don't just say you want to reduce your phone use or Instagram use. Be more specific, agree on how much time you allow yourselves to use Instagram for the next 5 days for example. You are a powerful “shoulder angel” for your accountability partner and vice versa. It will be harder for your shoulder devil to convince you to let go of your promise to stop entering the Youtube rabbit hole. Another benefit of an accountability partner is that if he or she is succeeding and keeping his or her promise, you will be motivated to do the same. “If my accountability partner can do it then surely I can too!” Such motivation will help you to face your obstacles and challenges and above all, it will help you to listen to your own shoulder angel more who at the end of the day wants you to live a fruitful life.

If you've done some research on phone addiction, then you probably came across dopamine. Neurons that release dopamine are activated when we expect to receive a reward. The reason why we grab our phones quickly, is that the chemical dopamine is released, a key neurotransmitter for regulating our sense of craving. This pleasure related receptor in the brain makes you excited and as a result, you want to get more of it. So when your phone demands your attention, dopamine is triggered and you get feelings of excitement. Unexpected rewards activate the dopamine system. You want to keep experiencing this, thus you keep reinforcing this habit of grabbing your phone when you hear or see a notification. This reaction teaches us to associate the action/behavior with rewards. That's how we unwittingly program ourselves to go for our phone instantaneously once we hear a notification coming in. This is how your phone is making you its slave. It's because of this very reason why you want to disable the push notifications. You want to prevent these dopamine hits to occur so you won't grab your phone like you're some sort of robot or zombie. You can focus on changing the action aka routine itself after the cue happens which is the notification, but that takes time and training. The quick fix is to disable the notifications. When a notification does come in, notice yourself feeling that urge to find out what's going on. That anticipation of what could be. Notice the craving and witness yourself experiencing all sorts of emotions. Then you can consciously decide to check your phone. Know what you're doing. Unchain yourself from that powerful spell your phone has put on you. Be aware of all your actions and why you're doing them.

Time is our most valuable currency. Time is literally ticking away and every single second that is passing is forever gone. Our lives equate to an hourglass, slowly we're running out of time. The big mystery though is how fast time is actually is running. For 40 years? For 10 years? For 18 months? We just don't know. That's why one of the biggest lessons we humans should really learn and understand, is how to use our time wisely. Time management is of the essence. Not even necessarily time management, time is running out without us doing anything. How to maximize our time, that is the mission we should be looking for. Social media loves to take our time, and we (gladly) give it away as if we can always buy more of it. Since this is not the case (unfortunately), it is imperative that your visits to the virtual world are mostly planned. Like any other activity for that matter. You don't need to literally plan your every single move in both the offline and online world, but when you do visit cyberspace, schedule time for it. Cyberspace loves to swallow you whole for hours. Then once it spits you out, you think to yourself: where did my afternoon go?! How time flew by so fast!? You want to avoid that. Schedule time blocks fully dedicated to social media. Plan your social media time in the morning, afternoon, and evening. You can plan and play for 1 hour that's fine, as long as you're not surprised after a full hour, that one hour flew by. Once that time block starts, use the timer that will go off after that time block has finished. The timer will “wake you up” from your trance in case you were fully immersed in your online activities. Set these time blocks and after a week or two evaluate if you're happy with that amount of social media time per day or per week. You might decide to reduce your social media time and spend your time more wisely and productively. You can still spend time online, but you may want to revise your activities which will benefit your state of mind and mental health. Don't let social media eat you alive, stay awake, and aware.

Apps have their own features that help you to use the app more mindfully. The YouTube app is one of them. Multiple times have I mentioned that YouTube is my most challenging app. YouTube offers loads of content including informative, educative and inspiring content. But whatever can be found on that platform, there is no excuse to use the app 5 hours a day. When you go to the settings of the app, you can find multiple features that are helpful such as the remind me to take a break feature. Listen to the podcast that explains where to enable/disable specific features to improve your experience on the YouTube app.

You have probably seen the thought-provoking documentary The Social Dilemma on Netflix by now. The documentary shares many insights about social media and delves into the implications of social media addiction as an invasive force in our everyday lives You will realize why it is so important to be mindful of your time on those platforms and your activities online. When the credits are running at the end, multiple tips are shared about how we can ensure social media is not controlling us. Check the video for 5 tips that are mentioned at the end of the documentary. One of them is to follow accounts you disagree with. When you do that you won't absorb the same content over and over again while your echo chamber is increasing in size. One of the insights that I appreciate was the following analogy shared by the man behind Facebook's like button Justin Rosenstein: We live in a world in which a tree and a whale is worth more financially dead than alive. For as long as corporations act in this way and are unregulated, these corporations are going to continue to destroy trees, to mine the earth… Now humans are the trees and whales. We are more profitable while we are spending time staring at a screen and consuming advertising and providing data to these big unregulated companies like Facebook, Google and the like. What have you learned from the Social Dilemma and what tips have you implemented or will you implement to curb social media addiction?