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Banned from the bedroom: Should we all have phone-free zones at home?

Designating phone-free zones around the home could help to reduce time spent on our devices.

Many of us feel compelled to pick up our phones regularly throughout the day, even though it may be against our better judgement. We seem to be addicted to our devices and are spending increasing amount of time online.

Speaking on Mornings, Tanya Goodin of digital detox campaign Time to Log Off explained that if we want to break the cycle of constantly checking our phones, introducing simple measures at home could make a real difference.

How to wean yourself off your phone

Digital entrepreneur Tanya Goodin reveals how we can try to kick our phone habit.

Set boundaries

“You need to set boundaries around specific places where phones don’t belong," says Tanya.

She suggests these should include eating areas, bathrooms and bedrooms.

“If you set a firm border and say, ‘This is a space where my phone doesn’t belong and it’s got to be away in my pocket or away in a bag', that is quite a simple way of starting to introduce little breaks in the day when you’re not on your phone."

Phone-free zones

Picking up our phones to check emails or browse social media has become a habit that’s hard to break. But the rise of phone-free spaces in cafes and restaurants suggests that some of us welcome the chance to be free of our devices.

Tanya admits she is concerned about the effects of having unlimited information available at the touch of a screen.

“We’re hooked on our phones because they do literally everything for us," she explains.

"There is some evidence that that’s affecting some of our brain processes.

"I used to be able to remember 20 phone numbers at least and I now can barely remember one, because the phone does that for me. [As for] navigating; we’re so reliant on GPS and Google maps, there’s some research that says we’re losing the ability to navigate.

"It would do us all good just to put the phones away and rely on our old school brain power once in a while," she says.