How to balance your relationship with your phone
If you ’ d love to have the confidence and tools to use your smartphone less , plus be prepared for how they may impact you and those around you , Louisa Guise is your gal . Read on …
Smartphones , along with the instant messengers and social media that feature on them , are still a relatively new way through which we can socialise and communicate . They have become a normal tool in our everyday lives – although the ways in which we use them do not always make sense from an evolutionary point of view .
Did you know that these devices are designed to be addictive ? Their noisy notifications and bright colours are modelled on the slot machines that you get at the casino . So , the fact you are glued to your phone is not entirely your fault . The design already leaves you at a disadvantage and makes it difficult for you to have a healthy relationship with your phone . Realising this is the first step towards a selfaware mindset that can help you see your device for what it is and begin to change things .
Face-to-face versus behind a screen In real-world communication with each other , we can receive up to as much as 93 % of what we are being told not from our words , but from our body language and other visual cues such as tone of voice , as well as the environment in which we are situated . But when you are communicating through a digital interface , there are few markers to regulate the conversation . One reason group chats on instant messengers can last for eternity is because there are
no natural signals to tell us to stop .
Social media and the conventions that developed around it have also complicated things with regards to how we communicate . Social media in and of itself has radically changed our communication style as we know it , as well as who we are now communicating with and how often . It has heavily influenced how we engage with each other , on our smartphones and in the real world , in more ways than we could have ever imagined .
A normal conversation will automatically and naturally end when participants have had enough . When this happens , everyone involved knows why without any explanation and there are no gaps to fill – no second guessing . If people leave a group chat , however , there can be drama . Being aware of this can also help you see how you communicate by using your smartphone , and why you communicate in the way that you do . It ’ s important to notice that the expectations that we have for each other have become too high .
A way forward ? One way to lessen the hold that your smartphone has on you is to use it less . This sounds obvious , but in reality it ’ s hard to distance yourself from something that is with you all of the time . Changes in the real world can affect how you behave in
54 Executive PA | Summer Issue 2025