limit notificationsnotice those red dots on iphones and samsung phones showing how many unread messages news items or app updates you have left to read of course you have red is a trigger colour that instantly draws our attention notes the center for humane technology to foil that on iphones and the most recent android phones go to your phones settings and turn off the dots known as badges for all but the handful of apps you care most about these might be messaging apps you use with friends or news services you want breaking news alerts from but do you really need a red dot for the 2346 unread emails you haveyou can also turn off push notifications app by appwith facebook youll need to go to the apps own settings to turn off the dozens of notification categories such as updates on your friends since you last logged in turning a category off will turn off dots for that category toodetox regularlyit can be as simple as going to the bathroom without your phone or turning it off during meal times or even every saturday leaving your phone behind helps your brain resetturn off autoplaybingewatching might be fun sometimes but it shouldnt be standard behaviourservices like youtube and netflix often play the next video automatically turn that off in the settings otherwise its easy to forget where time went in the middle of a stranger things bingeset a schedulenir eyal author of hooked how to build habitforming products compares humans to lab mice in an experiment of random rewards mice it turns out respond most voraciously to random rewards eyal wrote in 2012 social media apps have perfected the art of random rewards you dont know when youll get a friend request or a like or even when youll see a new post from a friend cue endless checkins and scrolling set aside a specific time each day to check facebook or email or instant messages then resist the urge until the next scheduled timealong those lines try deleting the facebook app from your phone and check only from a computer this could help reduce the temptation to check all daydont use your phone as an alarm clockthere was a time not too long ago when we were able to wake up without our phones using a magical device called an alarm clock get onethe center for humane technology suggests banishing phones from your bedside if not the entire bedroom this should make for better sleep partly because the blue light emitted from your phone can delay your bodys release of melatonin which helps your body go to sleep at night but perking up after a bedtime facebook like or getting anxious after reading a news story can also disrupt your zzzs so keep your phone a little farther and who knows you might even wake up and say good morning to your partner instead of checking your phone before youre even out of bed