The High Performance Journal - February 20th, 2024

In 2007, a new addictive drug took over the world.

In less than 15 years over half of the world's population was using this drug daily.

It's caused a rise in depression, anxiety, and suicide in all age ranges, especially young women.

This drug can most likely be found in your pocket. Chances are you're holding it right now.

This drug is called the smartphone.

What Do The Stats Say?

• Globally, people average 6 hours and 58 minutes of screen time per day.
• Daily screen time has increased by nearly 50 minutes per day since 2013.
• The average American spends 7 hours and 4 minutes looking at a screen each day.

If this continues then people from the ages of 20 to 80 would have spent a total of 10+ years of their lives looking at a screen.

But that's not even the worst part.

Chronic phone overuse has been shown to change your brain chemistry.

It affects ​GABA production where disturbances can be a warning sign of addiction​. It ​triggers dopamine by giving it a short-term boost that leads to a letdown​, which causes the brain to want more.

It ​shrinks the grey and white matter in your brain​, which is responsible for controlling movement, memory & emotions.

A ​study​ scanned someone's brain addicted to phone usage & found lower volume of grey matter with their brains resembling the physical shape & size of drug users.

The brain is activated by the phone much in the same way that the brains of other addicts are activated. Chemical pathways are energized in the presence of the stimuli. ​Source.

Other Evidence-Based Dangers Of Smartphone Addiction

• Anxiety
• Depression
• Car accidents
• Digital eye strain
• Neck & back pain
• Sleep disturbances
• Relationship problems

Apps And Phones Work Together To Keep You Addicted

Apps are designed to promote addictive behaviors.

In a 2011 interview with The New York Times, Steve Jobs said he banned his kids from using the newly released iPad.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai limits his 11-year-old's access to television and refuses to get him a smartphone.

Due to the dangers listed above many Silicon Valley elites are choosing to go low-tech.

Symptoms Of Smartphone Addiction. Are You Addicted?

• You crave it when you don't have it.
• You reach for your phone anytime you're bored
• You give it more attention than your kids or loved ones
• You use it during dangerous situations (ie. texting when driving)
• You experience feelings of anxiety, depression, or irritability when you don't have their phone
  
  

This is Your Life On a Smartphone

This is a graph is the life expectancy of an 18-year-old.

The colored dots are basic things we need to do to keep ourselves healthy and alive. The blank dots are the time we have to create, spend time with loved ones, travel, and do things that matter to us.

How we spend that time is going to determine the quality of our lives but as you can see we don't have much time left.

Want to break this habit and take 10+ years of your life back?

Here's what to do...

5 Simple (But Not Easy) Steps To Eliminating Smartphone Addiction

Step 1 - Awareness

Education is the first step and that's why you're reading this. Once we know how smartphones affect our lives we need to bring awareness to them.

Get out a journal and note down all the ways you use your phone to distract yourself from real life.

Journal down the reasons you reach for your phone and what it does for you.

The first step to solving a problem is admitting we have one in the first place.

Tip: Something I do is track my screen time day by day and week by week. I make a game with myself to see how much time I can reduce from looking at a screen. What you measure you manage.

Step 2 - Remove Triggers

This is like starting a diet where you remove all the junk food from the house.

Note down the apps and triggers that cause you to reach for your phone then have the courage to delete them.

Only keep essential apps on your phone. Remove all sounds and notifications that don't serve you because these trigger a Pavlovian response to always stay glued to your phone.

Tip: One thing I do is keep my phone in an entirely separate room or floor of my house. I also turn off notifications and don't keep social media and email apps on my phone.

Step 3 - Make Your Phone Ugly

Part of what makes us addicted to phones is the stimulation that color brings to our attention.

So turn your phone onto greyscale mode, which eliminates all colors.

This will make your phone so ugly that most times you won't be able to stand looking at it.

Tip: Here are instructions on how to turn your phone into greyscale mode ​on an iPhone​ and ​an Android​.

Step 4 - Create NO PHONE Zones

Make the places you usually scroll on your phone into NO PHONE zones.

If you scroll on your phone before you sleep make your bed a NO PHONE zone. If you always use it when eating banish it from your dinner table.

You need to designate NO PHONE zones in your home, hard rules & incentives for where you will use it (and not use it).

Tip: My wife and I made the dinner table and the bedroom a NO PHONE zone. This helps us become more present with our food and children at home.

Final Step - Don't Avoid. Replace.

Telling a person to not go on your phone is like telling someone to not think of a pink elephant. It doesn't work.

You don't avoid habits. You replace them.

So fill up that time you used with your smartphone with more fulfilling actions like reading, walking, etc..

You want to replace the time with something more worthwhile than scrolling the internet.

Tip: I bring my phone to the bathroom and usually scroll while doing my business. So I put books there instead and read instead of scrolling.

Take Back 10+ Years of Your Life

This is not to say that smartphones are "bad". They are a great tool and they have brought me a lot of prosperity.

The only issue is when you constantly use them to distract yourself or fill dead space.

I am not joking when I say that you can take back a decade of your life by creating a better relationship with your smartphone.

When you get old and look back on your life you don't want your memories to be dominated by images of a screen in your face.

You want to look back and say that you have lived as much life as you could.

And that starts with controlling your phone instead of controlling you.

I hope this email brought some value to your life. Until next time.

Onwards and upwards 🚀

- Dan

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