You need to quit social media.

In one of my previous posts I talked about how social networks make us lose cognitive abilities, but we can break that vicious circle of getting hooked on social networks with our cell phones. One way is to send your request to the nearest Mennonite community, but if hard work is not your thing, the alternative is to eliminate the compulsion that makes you pick up the phone without thinking.

Something surprisingly simple that works is to create physical barriers, this can be as simple as leaving your phone with the screen down and unimportant notifications muted, you commit to ignoring the phone until a time in the day that you decide when you will check your notifications and respond to messages, but that time should not exceed one hour during the day. You will know if you do it in two half-hour moments or four 15-minute moments, but you must take your time, if necessary, set a timer.

For many, putting the phone aside with the screen facing down will not be enough, if you find yourself picking up the phone accidentally, you will need to put it in another room or better yet on another level, no one compulsively goes up and down the stairs to check the phone, and if you do, the benefit is an impressive cardio and iron muscle session.

The joke is that during the day you only use the phone for what you really need to do, consult something or send an important message and when you do, go directly to do what you need to do, and ignore the notifications from the toxic applications, you will attend to those at the time of day that you assigned them and this leads me to the next trick.

Has it happened to you that you grab your phone to do something specific, but you end up on Instagram or TikTok and forget what you had to do? It is no coincidence, even the icons of these applications are carefully designed for that to happen, to attract your attention, they are too flashy and since you associate them with the dopamine reward, just seeing them on the screen causes your finger to without thinking open those applications and put everything you had to do in the background.

But the solution is very simple, drag those applications and remove them from the first, second and third screen, I have them grouped in a folder on the fourth screen of my phone, the folder is called the toxic ones, things as they are. That is, to open one of the toxic ones I need to unlock and pass one, two and three screens, this allows me to open them only when I really intend to open them.

This prevents me from opening them by “accident” or compulsion as soon as I unlock the screen and let you know, this is practically a detox, so you need to commit to stopping consuming the most addictive part of these applications, which are the short videos, I know, it's not easy, it's the first thing that appears when you open them.

Here you need willpower, ignore the first video and go to the chats to send or respond to messages, it's either that or simply uninstall the toxic applications and if you are able to do that, don't even finish reading this post because you already understood everything.

There are other tricks that can help complement the detox, for example, there are applications that make your phone show everything in gray, it is curious, but the lack of color makes the content much less attractive, it is also a good idea to get an alarm clock instead of using the phone alarm to avoid using it from the moment you wake up, but the most important thing is that you are aware of when and why you want to use the phone.

Compulsive use out of boredom, to pass the time, creates a dependency that affects your ability to focus, motivate yourself and be present with the people around you, this without counting the amount of time that goes by without feeling it when you are doing this, it is an addiction, especially short videos like TikTok, redit and shorts and the only way to get out of that trap that technology companies set for us is to have control.

Our phones can be an incredibly useful tool, use it, but in an active, premeditated way, do not miss the opportunity to answer any questions you have, if I want to send a message to someone, I go directly to my conversation with that person, even if I am looking for entertainment, a series or movie, first I think about what I really want to see and I go directly to look for what platform it is on and if I don't have it, I look for some other way to download it, better than spending an hour watching what the algorithm of those applications tells you. has prepared.

But there comes your ability to have control of what you consume, decide what you want to know, what you want to learn, what you want to entertain you, not allowing that decision to be made for you by an algorithm that uses you as a commodity at the expense of your mental health.

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! The truth will set us free and science is the one that is closest to the truth!

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