You class must implement DefaultLifecycleObserver like so

public class MyFavoriteClass implements DefaultLifecycleObserver

Then implement the methods needed (Android Studio: ALT + i)

@Override
public void onResume(@NonNull LifecycleOwner owner) {
    methodRunsAtOnResume();
}

@Override
public void onDestroy(@NonNull LifecycleOwner owner) {
    myFavoriteOnDestroyMethod();
}

In your activity or fragment add this to onCreate()

@Override
protected void onCreate(@Nullable Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
    MyOtherClass class = new MyOtherClass();
    getLifecycle().addObserver(class);
}

To implement it more correctly create your own observer class, pass the object you like to observe to it. Nice article about it is https://medium.com/@MinaSamy/android-architecture-components-lifecycle-433ace1ec05d

In order to keep track of the current Activity's lifecycle, you can use the LifecycleEventObserver class. First, create a callback,

private val lifecycleEventObserver = LifecycleEventObserver { source, event ->
    if (event == Lifecycle.Event.ON_RESUME ) {
        Log.e( "APP" , "resumed" )
    }
    else if ( event == Lifecycle.Event.ON_PAUSE ) {
        Log.e( "APP" , "paused" )
    }
}

Attach the callback in the onCreate method of the Activity using lifecycle.add( Observer ) method,

lifecycle.addObserver( lifecycleEventObserver )

You can create this function to use DefaultLifecycleObserver and call it in onCreate() lifecycle callback of an Activity

    private fun addDefaultLifeCycleObserver() {
        val defaultLifecycleObserver = object : DefaultLifecycleObserver {
            override fun onCreate(owner: LifecycleOwner) {
                super.onCreate(owner)
                Log.d("Main", "DefaultLifecycleObserver - onCreate")
            }
        }
        lifecycle.addObserver(defaultLifecycleObserver)
    }

It's deprecated because they now expect you to use Java 8 and implement the interface DefaultLifecycleObserver. Since Java 8 allows interfaces to have default implementations, they defined DefaultLifecycleObserver with empty implementations of all the methods so you only need to override the ones you use.

The old way of marking functions with @OnLifecycleEvent was a crutch for pre-Java 8 projects. This was the only way to allow a class to selectively choose which lifecycle events it cared about. The alternative would have been to force those classes to override all the lifecycle interface methods, even if leaving them empty.

In your case, change your class to implement DefaultLifecycleObserver and change your functions to override the applicable functions of DefaultLifecycleObserver. If your project isn't using Java 8 yet, you need to update your Gradle build files. Put these in the android block in your module's build.gradle:

    compileOptions {
        sourceCompatibility JavaVersion.VERSION_1_8
        targetCompatibility JavaVersion.VERSION_1_8
    }
    kotlinOptions {
        jvmTarget = '1.8'
    }