TODAY's journalist tried going cold turkey on her phone use outside working hours, spurred by the appealing concept of a "digital detox"

She quickly found that trying to abstain from phone use and reclaim some mental space was not very practical and her experiment failed

Acting on experts' advice, she turned to other ways of setting goals and boundaries to reduce dependency

Using technology such as apps and cutting out non-essential notifications can help prevent excessive screen time, they said

Small changes, instead of drastic actions, work better to create positive reinforcements