Best Ways to Use your Smartphone Intelligently

Are you going out without taking your smartphone with you? I bet no one will answer with a “yes.” Why? Because nowadays, smartphones are essential to us.

Smartphones have made everything reachable through a single touch. Once, family, friends, live games and work used to occupy the whole time in our schedule. Now, we can’t even imagine how much time we’re spending with our new best friend, the phone. It is the first thing we see when we wake up and the last thing we touch before going to sleep.

How have smartphones changed our lives?

According to statistics, almost half of the population owns a smartphone, and it is going to grow by several hundred million in the next few years. Twenty years ago, we couldn’t even imagine that there would arrive a day when we wouldn’t be able to live without a phone. In 2000, people used phones to call someone, to send a message, or an email.

All smart devices have changed the way we do things. Since 2007, the global mobile market penetration increased 12 times. Back then, we didn’t know how devices like smartphones, smart TVs, smartwatches, or tablets work. Now we use them daily. Even if we talk about groceries, shopping, bills, work, sport, or communication, all of them are linked to a single element: the phone.

How much time do we spend looking at our smartphones?

According to measurement company Zenith, on average, people use their phones approximately 3 hours and 15 minutes per day, 20 minutes more from a year earlier. The time we spend attached to our mobile devices is constantly growing. Why does it happen? Because activities like socializing that used to happen offline are shifting online.

Advantages

The most important thing smartphones did for our generation is to improve and modernize the communication process. They have paved the way to text messaging, calls, video chat, and apps that allow people to instantly communicate to everyone on the globe instantly. Now, if we need an answer from someone, we can receive it in a couple of seconds.

Another advantage of mobile phones is that we can feel wanderlust without wandering. Most smartphones are equipped with Global Positioning System (GPS), which allows people to locate certain addresses, restaurants, museums, or anything else from all around the world. This has improved not only communication but, most especially, transportation. The fear of going to a foreign place has disappeared.

Smartphones are also used as a source of entertainment. Games, music, movies, and books are at a tap distance from us. Statistics show us that there are approximately 63.7 million people in North America using smartphones for gaming.

Moreover, people can listen to music with iTunes, Spotify, or Youtube every time. Also, e-books are a faster and easier way to enjoy your favorite book while going on a vacation without having to put an extra bag with you for your books.

Regarding education, smartphones can be beneficial in some situations. As it is easy to access all kinds of information and content, children can have more interactive learning through watching education videos and using education applications such as learning a new language, improving their skills, painting, etc. They can also easily surf the internet if they want to search for something about a certain topic.

For adults, it is much easier to spend your time reading the news online and not going anymore to the market at the corner to buy a journal. In addition, smartphones can help you in your workplace. Write a fast email, call a client, or book an appointment. It has never been easier than now.

The camera is also an important element for the “selfie” generation. It’s not necessary anymore to buy a separate camera to take photos. You have it all in one in your pocket. 🙂 Now that we need the camera to scan a document, expose our work on social media or join a video conference, practically use it both for personal and professional interest, the camera ranks third as the most important consideration for consumers in buying a smartphone.

Disadvantages

Now, here’s the bad news. Smartphones are sometimes a trap. They are ideal for something, but they can destroy another thing. What would you do if you’d lose your phone? Hmmm…a real nightmare, isn’t it? That’s because smartphones can generate addiction. As too much of anything is good for nothing, depending on a smartphone makes you addicted.

At an Apple event in January 2010, Steve Jobs talked for the first time about iPads to the public. For 90 minutes, he explained why the iPad is the best way to listen to music, see photos, watch a movie, or spend time on social media. In his mind, everybody on the planet had to have an iPad. But the question is…why did he forbid his children to own a personal mobile phone then? Because he knew the danger of the technology, the addiction it can cause.

If you want to discover the wonderland of technology, I highly recommend you to read the book “Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked” written by Adam Alter.

Even many psychological issues like loneliness or anxiety are caused by being online too much. There are also other common bad effects of using smartphones, such as sleep deprivation or damaging your eyes’ retina, especially when you use them in a dark place.

As I mentioned above, regarding education, smartphones can be beneficial just in some situations. There are also moments in which we can’t say that they are helpful and educational. Exposure to unwanted information on the internet may affect some people physically.

When it comes to productivity, smartphones can really be distracting. Screen notifications with messages, updates, emails, or a call can interrupt the moment of maximum concentration and productivity. Avoid jumping to immediately open the notifications and enjoy time with your family, finish your work, and let it for later.

When you spend too much time online, you actually have poor social interactions in real life. Being online for most of the time keeps you away from having real experiences and creates imaginary sociability. You’ll see in the upcoming paragraphs how smartphones are stealing our time little by little and how we could use them by being more productive. Ready? 🙂

What are you wasting your time on?

Why do I say, “wasting your time?” It may sound uncomfortable, but this is what we do. Scrolling and scrolling, time is passing, and at the end of the day, we suddenly notice that we’ve spent 4-5 hours doing nothing.

Socials

According to Broadband Search, on average, people spend 144 minutes, or two hours and 24 minutes on social media daily. The daily time spent on Facebook is 58 minutes, on Instagram for 53 minutes, on Youtube for 40 minutes. Think about how much it is in a week…or in a year. You could spend this time more exciting, couldn’t you? 🙂

The best joke about the pandemic that I heard is the following one: “I marked myself safe on Facebook by going out of quarantine without creating a TikTok account.” Apps like TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter were created to improve communication between people. Now, entertainment has moved to these platforms, and it has been a huge success. Scrolling for hours and watching videos on Tiktok or Instagram … I’d rather say it is not so productive for anyone. 🙂

Games

Only gamers can understand this game: there’s no secret that the gaming market is booming. More and more people are using mobile devices to play games. According to Mediakix, 56% of 2.3 billion global mobile gamers play games more than ten times a week. That is…a lot of time. Is gaming really worth spending so much time on your phone? I’d say no… Anyway, if you’re a gamer, you don’t have to stop playing your favorite games, but for your mental and physical health, you’d better reduce the time spent playing and try using your phone in a more productive way.

Groups

We all know those WhatsApp or Messenger groups with thousands of notifications in a couple of minutes. There are essential groups, such as teamwork, children’s school, clients, etc., but there are also those groups that are not very useful, but anyway, we’re there. Try to get rid of the non-essential notifications on your screen.

How to use your phone intelligently?

Use social media to promote your work and attract new clients.

Facebook and Instagram can be both useful if you know your purpose when you’re using them. If you’re a hairstylist, barber, makeup artist, nail tech, personal trainer, pet groomer, or lash artist, you’re providing services for your local community, and they have to hear about you before choosing you. Therefore, social media could be a very economical, easy to use, and practical way to promote your business. Read in our article 8 reasons why your small business needs Social Media Marketing.

Manage your appointments

Besides using your phone beneficially by implementing a social media marketing strategy, another good way to use your smartphone would be to let it keep track of your schedule. It doesn’t matter if you’re a beginner in using your phone professionally. With Goldie, it’s easier than you think.

Now, you can check your schedules every time, everywhere. You can earn more time for yourself, have a better organization, and no more no-shows. Therefore, if you need help with managing your clients’ appointments, sending automated text message reminders, or getting financial stats about your business progress, Goldie scheduling software is right here to help. You can download it from the App Store or Google Play.

We recently launched a new feature that fits best for this period: mass messages. You can now easily send a mass/bulk text message to all your clients with an update (e.g., happily reopening after quarantine), a special deal, or send a rebooking reminder to people you haven’t seen in a while. Also, you can let clients book online via your own Goldie booking website, and ask for deposits or payments online.

Use money management apps

Managing money, fitting into a budget, controlling investment decisions, and even keeping track of the products we buy are easier than ever before. Now with the plenty of personal finance apps available out there, we don’t have an excuse anymore. When you see exactly what you are wasting your money on, you learn better how to control your shopping instinct and how to manage your budget to save some money and buy only useful stuff.

Keep yourself informed

Being always informed about what happens around the world is very important, but who’s buying journals nowadays? I think only the old-fashioned ones… Therefore, journal apps can be a cheap, fast, and comfortable way to always know the news. Almost every journal has an app, and all the news is continuously updated. What are you waiting for? Stay in touch with the relevant things. 🙂

As a conclusion…

Learn to maintain a limit in everything you do, especially when it comes to using your phone. Don’t forget, it steals a lot of time if you’re not careful how and for what you use it. If you let all the entertainment out there distract you, chances are you’ll see at the end of the day that you wasted 4 hours in which you could have done something good for yourself, for your family, or your job. As H.D. Thoreau once said, “it’s not enough to be busy. The question is: what are you busy about?“