How to Use Smartphones and Prevent Them From Using You (Part 1)

 

SMARTPHONES

Technology has developed at an overwhelming rate in this generation. In the olden days, people used to treat technology as a 'thing' which is used. But now, it has become so important that you can't think of anything you can do without technology. 

The pros of technology is that it serves as an educational platform for students. Children living in remote areas can easily access education through technology. It helps to keep contact with friends and family. It also serves as a place for entertainment. You can also share information, like this blog I am writing.

But here comes the cons of technology. Children spend too much time watching YouTube and playing video games which results in a loss of lot of quality time. In that time, children would have been studying, or maybe exploring, exercising and playing outdoor games, and critical-thinking games like chess. Technology has even grabbed the minds of adults. People are found staring at the screen and whenever someone asks "what are you doing?" the answer comes "I was checking Facebook" or something like that. Now tell me, what will I do by checking?

Of course you don't have an answer. There is NOTHING you accomplish by checking. I have read the book Do It Today by Darius Foroux and he says 'Checking makes you consume useless information.' So, stop checking and start creating. 

Sometimes, people open YouTube with no particular reason in mind and start scrolling down the recommendations. They scroll and scroll and scroll, and finally when they look up from the screen (which is pretty rare) they find out that hours had passed away. This is what you call an unaware entertained mind. This is the state when you keep watching and scrolling through the phones and have no track of time or no track of what you were even doing.

I can suggest some tips to help you use technology and prevent it from using you.

Start by blocking notifications on social media. Or just delete those apps which you hardly use for a necessary reason. And when I say necessary, I mean useful, reasonable things like keeping contacts with friends and family/work-related apps/educational and school related apps. Don't use social media to show the new beagle you brought home from the pet store. Use it to share information which will really make a change in intellect/useful knowledge.

Now, while you are working/studying, keep the devices away from you which get you distracted. 

Then, get rid of all video games on your devices. Video games may entertain you, but they waste a lot of your time, and also eat up your mind. This is also another example of unaware entertained mind. Start playing board games like chess which don't waste your time but build your thinking skills. Take a walk. You can also play sports, exercise and run. 

Open YouTube only for educational and short entertainment purposes. I hardly open YouTube. I have a YouTube channel in which I upload facts and concepts like science, geography, etc. And I only open YouTube for educational videos. When the teachers show a video in class at school, I come home and open YouTube to watch the video again so I can get my time to pause or play to note things down. But you can also use it for entertainment. But don't keep watching. Control yourself and keep a time limit, say, 5-10 minutes. 

So put aside Facebook and open a real book.

Picture credit: Google

Check out part 2 of this post: https://viewmyblog960360.blogspot.com/2024/09/how-to-reduce-internetsocial-media.html