How to Quit This Addictive App
I don’t know about you, but I’ve heard a lot of people say they want to ditch some particularly exciting aspects of modern technology in 2018. You might want to uninstall Candy Crush from your phone once and for all. Maybe you only want to check Twitter once a day. Maybe you want to stop hating reading your feed or forum, maybe you want to stop stalking your ex on Instagram, or maybe you just want to spend more time interacting with something other than the screen.
For most of us, the decision to quit smoking will not be enough. We need additional tools to keep our hands off the phone and this addictive app – and before we do, we need to understand why these apps keep bringing us back.
There are two important reasons why many apps are addictive. The first reason – as you may recall from your Introduction to Psychology course – has to do with the idea of periodic reinforcement . You don’t know when to receive the next Candy Crush award, and you don’t know what you’ll see when you open Facebook: it might be funny, it might be annoying, it might be the same post Facebook showed you this morning, or it might be a new photo. someone you love.
You don’t know what you will get, so you need to find out.
It is also difficult to log out of many apps (especially social media) because humans are social animals. We enjoy communicating with other people, and many applications provide us with an easy and inexpensive way to connect. We find it difficult to close these apps because our friends and family (and exes) are still using them and we want to see what they do.
So how do you stop the compulsive urge to take a quick glance or play a quick game – and how to prevent “one quick game” from turning into a twenty-minute session with glazed eyes?
Here are some suggestions.
Delete application
This is the obvious solution: press that X and remove the app from the phone. You can always reinstall it if you like!
But I know that not everyone can uninstall all addictive apps. In these apps, we communicate with friends, family and colleagues, not to mention where we get a lot of news.
Therefore, we need to find workarounds.
Give yourself “time to quit smoking”
Let’s say you don’t necessarily want to uninstall Candy Crush from your phone (for example, it’s helpful to pass the time while you wait in line). Maybe you know you need to maintain a professional Twitter presence, or maybe you want to see your nephew’s childhood photos on Facebook. There are many reasons why you might not want to close the application completely … but you can still get rid of this feeling of addiction.
Secret? Know when you are going to quit smoking before you start . By taking the time to quit smoking – you can even use your phone’s alarm to remind you – you can get everything you need out of the app without getting stuck in it. You will also avoid the “fun loop” when you check Facebook, then Twitter, then play a few rounds of Candy Crush, and then check Facebook and Twitter again.
Throw so that it works for your personality
I can guess what you are thinking: “I tell myself that I will come out after one round, but then I keep playing!” This could be because your personality is not programmed to throw something cold. You may need a little extra motivation – for example, a contract with a friend.
Gretchen Rubin, author of Four Trends: Essential Personality Profiles That Show How To Improve Your Life (And The Life Of Others) , divides personalities into four types:
- Upholder: meets both external and internal expectations
- Obliger: meets external expectations, resists internal expectations.
- Question: resists external expectations, meets internal expectations.
- Rebel: Resists both external and internal expectations
Is it easy for you to get things done when you do something for someone else but put your own to-do list off until later? You are probably Obliger. Do you have a strong sense of your own values, but resist the values and roles that others have assigned to you? You may be asking a question.
Take the Ruby Four Trends Quiz to find out which trend is most likely to apply to your life, then follow her advice (cited below):
Debtors
Create a social media accountability group where you check every day if you’ve resisted the app; ask your child to remove the app from your phone and think of a bad example of self-control you would install if you put it back in. Agree with a friend that if you spend three months without this app, you will buy concert tickets for the two of you, so now if you use the app, you will disappoint your friend.
Questions
They can log their use to see exactly how long it takes (people who are talking to them tend to like to keep an eye on themselves) and remind themselves that they are not achieving other important goals in their lives because this app is wasting them. time. “I feel like I don’t have time to practice the guitar, but look how I could bring that time back.”
Insurgents
Some rebels love the challenge: “My family thinks I can’t refuse this app? Well look at me! “Or” Starting January 1st, I’m going to be working on my novel, and I’m going to finish by December 31st – which means no Twitter. “
Defenders
If Upholder wants to get out of an addictive application, Upholder can probably do it without too much hassle. Defenders are good at this kind of thing.
Get out instead of quitting
Sometimes you don’t need to close the entire app – just the parts of it that cause you the most stress. For example, if you feel like you are spending too much money on in-app purchases, you can turn off your credit card information. With social networking apps, you can remove friends or mute individual accounts.
Once you pull out the elements of the app that give you the most anxiety, you may find that the app becomes funny again, rather than a combination of fun / worry / shame.
