BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION PLAN FOR MOBILE PHONE ADDICTION
Behavior modification plan is a plan that people use to stop or change an existing behavior or to
gain a new behavior.
Staring at the mobile phone for long periods of time isolates people from social life, making them
asocial and physically damaging as they are immobilized and exposed to light during the time
they are staring at the phone. No matter how useful the phone is for communication, using it for
long periods of time should be restricted because of the problems mentioned before. Even though
people are aware of these problems, they find it difficult to break away from this behavior due to
the effect of the applications on the mobile phone on dopamine levels and the addiction it causes
in the person. This behavior modification plan aims to end mobile phone addiction.
DEFINATIONS
Operant conditioning: It is process of modifying a learning behavior by strengthening or
weakening it as a result of intended consequences. Behavior is conditioned by operant
conditioning principles: Punishment and reinforcement. By using these principles, different
results are aimed to be obtained and these results have a significant effect on overcoming mobile
phone addiction.
Reinforcement: Itis the presentation of the factors necessary to increase or maintain the
determined behavior. There are two types of reinforcement: Positive reinforcement and negative
reinforcement. Positive reinforcement is the provision of a positive consequence to increase the
repetition of the behavior. Negative reinforcement is the removal of a negative consequence in
order to increase or maintain the specified behavior.
Punishment: It is the provision of factors or consequences that are necessary to end the specified
behavior. It is divided into positive and negative punishment. Positive punishment is the
provision of a negative consequence to reduce the identified behavior. Negative punishment is the
elimination of positive factors to reduce the specified behavior.
IDEAS TO MODIFY THE BEHAVIOR
One of the ideas that can be presented to overcome phone addiction can be to reward the person.
At this point, people who use the phone less than the daily limit are rewarded with a vacation
with a person of their choice at the end of the month. This is an example of positive
reinforcement because the person is presented with a positive consequence to reinforce their
behavior.
Another idea is to require people who exceed their daily time limit to go for a run for as long as
they exceed it. In order to reduce the amount of time the person looks at the screen, a situation is
created that forces them to do so, and too much of it has a negative consequence. This is therefore
an example of positive punishment.
A final idea is to restrict access to cell phones for people who exceed the daily limit by too much.
In order to reduce the amount of time the person spends looking at the screen, it is aimed to
eliminate a positive consequence that the person likes. For this reason, it can be shown as an
example of negative punishment.
In order to overcome mobile phone addiction, the daily usage of the person is determined by
using screen time tracking applications installed on the phone. The ideas are tracked over a period
of time, either alone or in combination, and the results can be analyzed to see whether the plan
will be effective or not.