One of our Undistractable — Digital Detox bootcamp participants once shared his experience about how he attempted to do a complete digital detox.
He had switched his smartphone for a basic feature phone and deleted all his social media profiles.
He took this drastic step because he was often distracted during work and even when he spent time with his baby daughter.
A few days after this extreme abstinence, he found that being without WhatsApp meant that he was cut off from the chitchat of colleagues and family. He could not use GPS or listen to podcasts while driving, which he used to enjoy earlier.
Predictably, he gave up the experiment. He later enrolled in our bootcamp after hearing about it from one of his friends.
The advice I gave him then is the same advice I give everyone.
Abstinence does not work for smartphone addiction. You must build a better relationship with your smartphone, rather than give it up.
We live in an interconnected world where being completely off the grid is not a practical or desirable solution for most of us.
A practical solution – Undistractable bootcamp
Here is the good news.
It is possible to undo many of the harmful effects that are caused by smartphones.
You can rewire your habitual patterns to not feel so anxious and on edge when you don’t check the phone for 5 minutes.
You can rebuild focus and attention. You can learn how to immerse yourself in focused work and enter the pleasurable flow state.
You can build a healthy mature relationship with all digital devices and take control of your life.
And you can do all of this without taking the extreme step of giving up your smartphone.
That is what our bootcamp, Undistractable — Digital Detox bootcamp, is designed to help you achieve.
Here’s a little bit about the philosophy and science behind Reboot.
Healthy relationship, not abstinence
We built Undistractable — Digital Detox bootcamp around the idea that there is a sweet spot for smartphone usage.
A study published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied found that “conscious and controlled changes of daily time spent on smartphone use” can improve well-being (less anxiety and depression, more life satisfaction) and lead to a much healthier lifestyle (more exercise, less smoking). Complete abstinence is not necessary and not sustainable [1].
Participants reported positive effects simply reducing smartphone usage time.
Not being able to fall back on smartphone usage forced participants to come up with functional coping strategies to deal with daily challenges. Having to use their own agency and control had a positive domino effect on other aspects of their life like increased physical activity and less smoking.
In Reboot, we lead you to this mindset shift by helping you become aware of your current habits, showing you how to break the loop, surf the urge when craving strikes, and build better habits to replace the old ones.
Your journey will be easier with our personal support and compliance tracking to force the shift from the ingrained habit of smartphone use.
Hacking the habit loop
In his bestselling book Atomic Habits, James Clear explains how any habit is built in 4 stages:
- Trigger/Cue
- Craving
- Response/Action
- Reward
These 4 stages form a feedback loop which forms the backbone of every habit that we have.
Trigger/Cue: The trigger or cue prompts your brain to initiate a behaviour which it considers rewarding. E.g., your phone lights up with a notification – it might be a message from your friend.
Craving: The trigger indicates to your brain that there is a reward nearby, and you immediately feel an intense urge or craving to check your phone.
Response/Action: This step is the actual habit that you perform. In this case, you reach out and pick up your phone.
Reward: This is the end goal of every habit. You open the phone and find a message from your friend. That makes you happy.
This is your habit loop.
To break a habit, you must break the habit loop at any of these stages.
To build a habit, strengthen the habit loop at any of these stages.
In Undistractable — Digital Detox bootcamp, we teach you practical steps to break bad habits and build good ones.
Mindful use of digital devices
Mindfulness is about seeing ourselves and the world more clearly. It is one of the foundational pillars of our bootcamp.
Psychotherapists routinely integrate mindfulness practices into behavioural change programs for smoking, emotional eating, and others.
By mindfully observing your habit loop, you can create a shift in the way you perceive what goes on in your body and mind, when in the throes of a strong urge to check your phone.
For example, simply by paying conscious attention to the frustration and helplessness you feel when doomscrolling, it may lead to a perceptible mental shift – from simply intellectually knowing that doomscrolling is bad, to knowing it in your bones.
Even as you experience craving, mindfully observing how the urge feels will help you relax into them and ride out the craving. This is something we cover in detail in the Undistractable — Digital Detox bootcamp.
Mindfulness helps you get better at noticing your thoughts and also recognize core emotions, desires, and fears that drive many of our addictive behaviours. This is the first step in breaking the behaviour.
The reason why an approach rooted in mindfulness works is because you’re first figuring out what you’re trying to achieve and enlisting the help of your brain, rather than fight against its urges which will likely result in failure.
Through mindfulness you will get to a stage where you deeply recognize that you don’t have to act on every urge. You will also learn how to stop yourself from acting on an urge. This is when you regain control over your life. This is where Undistractable takes you.
A new, reliable set of habits
With Undistractable, our aim is to help you build a reliable set of habits that are integrated into your life.
- Healthy routines for using your phone
Build new healthy habits around how you will use your phone in different situations.
Where will you keep your phone? When will you use the phone? When will you not use it? Which apps add value to your life? Which apps are dangerous and must be used carefully so you don’t get sucked in? What are the rules you have framed around that?
We teach you how to do all of this in the least disruptive way.
- Periodic digital fasting and cultivating other meaningful activities
We need to give ourselves a periodic reset to our dopamine feedback loops. Reboot will teach you how to do this without affecting your regular life.
You will also rediscover the joy of non-phone related activities such as reading, or practising a hobby like guitar, painting, or singing.
Many Reboot participants find it incredibly gratifying to rediscover their ability to immerse themselves in a book.
- Getting back on track
Once in a while, you may find yourself falling back into old habits. This happens to everyone.
Rather than beat yourself up about it, get back on track quickly.
It is not about chasing perfection. Understand that some days will be good, some days will be bad.
Learn how to allow yourself guilt-free phone time, so it is easier to stick to your overall goals for the long term.
Undistractable will show you how.
Join Undistractable
Undistractable — Digital Detox bootcamp follows a systematic process from start to finish.
You’re not going to be all over the place, doing this and that.
There is no guesswork. Simply learn from the theory videos and practise the exercises and assignments we give you.
To make sure that you stay focused and make progress on the curriculum, we offer personal support and compliance follow-ups.
If you commit to following Reboot for just 4 weeks, there is simply no way your digital habits won’t change for the better.
To enroll in the next batch, fill out the application form.
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Sources
[1] Brailovskaia, J., Delveaux, J., John, J., Wicker, V., Noveski, A., Kim, S., Schillack, H., & Margraf, J. (2022). Finding the “sweet spot” of smartphone use: Reduction or abstinence to increase well-being and healthy lifestyle?! An experimental intervention study. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1037/xap0000430