A Journey to the Start of Phone Addiction!
Posted by Jamila Johar on July 24th, 2018
It is often said, “Change is the inevitable truth”. Things change, situations change and people change. It spares no one. And this change never happens overnight. Like one day you suddenly wake up and, hola! You are a changed being! No that happens only on telenovelas. But in real life, all changes have a long end process behind them.
And so is the process of being a Cell Phone Addict! We all have this general idea of what “addiction to phone” means, but how do we know we are an addict? When do we realize that? Does a fairy come down all the way from heaven and speak the magic words to us? Or is there a whole lot of show going on behind the veil, which we need to understand?
In my last blog, we discussed upon Phone Addiction – the new Drug! And in this one we would focus on the mechanism of becoming a phone addict. Addiction, like any other process, occurs in stages. And like any other drug, mobile phone addicts too pass through all of these. So, let’s start!
I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.
–Jimmy Dean
Stage 1: CRAVER
Craving means to long for something and that’s what a craver does. This is the start flag to the addiction process. Once you clear this check post, you are in a greater mess. This is the point where everything seems normal. You are still a normal user and are able to effortlessly manage your life and your phone in a balanced way. But slowly you crave. You want more of your phone, everywhere. You miss it. You regret leaving it at home. You find it more interesting than get-togethers and even shopping! You crave for it like a small child craving for a toy! Buddy, believe me, if you fall for this there is no turning back!
Stage 2: HABITUAL
Habit. A very deadly word if you have a ‘bad’ one. The most interesting thing about habits is that good ones, take a long time to cultivate but these evil, nasty ones, are so damn fast! And so is ‘mobile addiction’. You won’t realize when it happened, but your cravings slowly form a habit. Your ‘want’ for the phone now becomes your ‘need’, your craving turns into something you do on a regular basis. You wake up and check your phone and sleep after kissing it goodnight. Just like you brush, bathe, eat and sleep, your phone too, becomes your routine! And as said ‘Habits Die Hard!’
Stage 3: DEPENDENT
The venom now starts to show its colors. Slowly you become dependent on your phone. You cannot do a thing without it. Whether you want to talk, play or read your first choice is your phone. This little poison becomes your best pal. You chose its company even at meals, in the washroom, at movies or tours! It is like a doorway for you, out of your life. A window from where you helplessly just stare at the moments slip by!
Stage 4: OBSESSED
Now you actually start enjoying this dependency. In fact, you become greatly obsessed with your device. It becomes so hard to even keep it down. You go on doing your stuff in it, without blinking an eye. And I mean it, literally. You forget to blink. You forget to eat. You are removed from your daily life processes. You lose productivity. You lose the will to do new things, try new stuff. All you want is your phone. All you find interesting is your phone. Although you won’t do any real work. You would just scroll down the feeds, or watch movies and videos, or play games, or stare at dresses you don’t even want to purchase! But it’s always you and your phone!
Stage 5: ADDICTED
What could be next? A stage where all is blur……where you are just a puppet not knowing what went wrong. You now have a sense that your phone has been a devil in disguise all this while, but even then you are unable to give up on it. You want a break-up, but your mind is all consumed in your cell phone to be ready to do it. And here is when my friend you realize, YOU HAVE BECOME A PHONE ADDICT!
All these stages are hairline apart. And maybe you identify yourself with more than one stage at a time. Maybe you are at the transition between two stages. Maybe you are at the last stage, or maybe you have just started on the path to Addiction! But my friend, you need to acknowledge this and accept this ASAP! Or else the return is going to be tough.
Being this said, I would love to recommend you an amazingly useful app that would help you know exactly, at which stage you are and help you get out of it in a fun and easy way. No app blocks, no alarms, and buzzers. This app is just that FRIEND, which would be there with you and guide you until you are finally detoxed! It is the YourHour App – placing Your Time in Your Hand! Try it out, it really works!
With more exciting features coming across to help you keep Your Time in Your Hand, the YourHour app is a complete digital solution for detoxification of your phone addiction. Let’s take our steps towards being SMART USERS of our phones and not just owners of SMART PHONES!