Want to stop obsessively looking at your phone? Here’s one simple solution to try.
Talk to teenagers and you realize: they love their phones. We talked to a bunch of them on the National Day of Unplugging at Milken Community Schools. Many of them told us they are doing things like Snapchat, Instagram, texting, social media and talking to their friends.
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But, it turns out, adults are pretty much the same way.
“If you look around, you’ll see people just completely consumed by devices – just looking down and not taking in the world,” said Kim Anenberg Cavallo, the creator of a new app called Lilspace.
Cavallo says she was basically the same way – that’s why she started an app to help. Lilspace is an app that urges you to disconnect through the use of a timer tied to a cause – the longer you stay off your phone, the more rewards you can rack up.
“We’re really looking for ways to motivate people to get a little space,” explained Cavallo.
Lilspace encourages people to put their phone away during dinner, workouts, quality time with the kids and more. The app gets businesses to donate to causes you care about in exchange for your time.
“There’s a constant fear, constant anxiety of what if something happens, I need my phone,” school counselor Whitney Fisch told us.
Fisch says parent often urge their kids to disconnect, but there’s something they don’t realize:
“It’s not going to work if the parent is constantly on the phone,” explained Fisch. They have to be a role model and set their own boundaries.
So how do we put down that phone? Cavallo has a super simple solution: find activities that make you forget about your phone in the first place.
“If you have something you’re already interested in and your phone is just interrupting – take those opportunities to start unplugging a little bit every day,” said Cavallo.
In fact, that’s how Cavallo came up with the idea for the app. She started taking a spin class and realized that she wasn’t thinking about checking her phone during the 45-minute class.
So bottom line – if you want to get off of your phone, get into something that’s more exciting than the screen.
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