Published on 9 February 2023
5 reasons to turn off your smartphone
- Save electricity
- Less social media, more real life We’ve gotten used to sharing great experiences straight away on Facebook or Instagram. We take photos and videos of our food, new outfits or new mountain bikes, spice them up with some music and a GIF and upload it all as a story or reel. In return, we get likes and comments and that makes us feel good.
- Run updates for greater security Updates are important to make surfing the Internet or using mobile data more secure. However, for many apps, updates are only installed after you restart your phone.
- Digital detox for our health We often don’t even realise when we spend hours on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Tiktok, YouTube or numerous other social media platforms. Fear of Missing out (FOMO) is a phenomenon of digitalisation and being permanently online. Even if we’re not aware of it, this is stressful for us – for both our mind and our body!
- Avoid radiation Smartphones generate electromagnetic radiation (electrosmog) – even when we’re not using them. And as we always have our phones on us – usually even directly on our person – this means that we are practically energised around the clock. Around 1,000 scientific studies have now shown that this has a negative effect on us in the long term. This actually applies to all digital devices that use WiFi or Bluetooth, including tablets, laptops and wireless headphones like Apple Airpods.
We don’t need our mobile phones when we’re asleep. But most people still leave their smartphones and even Wi-Fi or Bluetooth on overnight. And even when we’re not using our mobile phones, they’re still transmitting signals – while draining the battery.
In addition, some apps are constantly running in the background without us noticing. And not just at night, but around the clock. This also drains the battery, meaning we have to charge our mobile phones much more often than is necessary. This in turn reduces the battery life and the life of the mobile phone itself.
Tip:switch off your smartphone overnight and only turn on Bluetooth when you need it. Put all of the apps you don’t use every day on standby (under ‘Settings’).
But it means we spend so much time on social media using features like post, like and share that the many beautiful moments we’re dying to capture for Instagram and Facebook simply pass us by.
Tip: simply get off social media, turn off your smartphone and really enjoy just being in the moment.
And if you have to turn off your phone to do that, it’s worth just leaving it off for a few hours to take some time offline. This allows the smartphone to ‘recover’ and also allows us to clear our heads and make time for the things that are good for us again, like doing yoga or reading a book – a paper one, of course.
This also includes messengers like WhatsApp and Signal, as well as tools like Microsoft Teams or Slack. And finally, there’s the classic – e-mail. So all of this means that our smartphone is constantly vibrating and beeping away, notifying us about new messages around the clock. But constant accessibility creates constant stress and doesn’t allow us to ever rest and just switch off.
Tip: switch off to switch off! Go without your smartphone in the evening – especially before going to bed – and switch it off completely at night, on weekends and when you’re on holiday.
Switching smartphones to flight mode isn’t that helpful because they still emit radiation and generate electrosmog. So, turn off your mobile phone as often as you can! It’s the only way to reduce radiation.
More about electrosmog and its effects
Extra tip: free interference field analysis is available to help you find out which radiation sources are around you every day. This individually determines all interference fields in your immediate living environment – tailored to you, free of charge and without obligation.
Which interference fields are around me?
