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I’m sitting in my giant, comfy love seat, book in hand, ready to settle in for the night. I’m a few pages in and my hand starts to get twitchy - the other hand, the one not holding my book. Next thing I know, I’m twirling my phone from the gripper on the back. A few minutes later, the book is discarded and I’m scrolling Instagram. Why? No idea. There’s nothing I’m actually looking for, nothing I feel like I’m missing out on. And, I was perfectly content inside of my book. So why am I suddenly on my phone?
I’m not sure but that’s the moment I realized something needed to change.
According to a recent survey, the average person spends 3 hours and 15 minutes on their phone per day. And in looking at my screen time report Apple sends each week, I’m right in line with that. Sometimes slightly more, sometimes slightly less, but almost always in that 3 hour range.
In the grand scheme of things, am I horrified by that number? I’m not, but what I’m realizing more is that I’m not using my phone intentionally. I’m picking it up when I’m engaged in other activities - activities I actually enjoy! Whether it’s reading a book, playing a game with my kids, hanging out outside. And that isn’t what I want to be doing.
I want to enjoy life without caring about what’s happening inside of the tiny box that’s always attached to me. I want to walk into another room without taking my phone with me. I want to be a better role model for my kids. If I make them limit their screens, shouldn’t I do the same?
But damn if those engineers don’t know what they’re doing when it comes to getting you hooked on these tiny computers.
So, this is what I’m doing to work on the problem:
My phone stays in the living room at night. I’m cheating with this first one, because I’ve done this for YEARS, but sometimes we need something we can easily check off the list, right? I don’t sleep with my phone in my bedroom - ever. And I can’t remember the last time I did. It stays plugged in in the living room overnight. Sometimes I worry about what happens if there’s an emergency overnight and no one can get ahold of me, but I suppose that’s a Tomorrow Sarah problem.
I’m taking up a new hobby. I’ve been wanting to learn to draw for years and have just never invested the time in it. Well, my friends, the time is now. Literally this week I grabbed some art supplies, and I’ve started sketching both in my new sketchbook and on my iPad. My hope is that doing this with my hands will release me from the feeling of wanting to grab my phone because my hands are occupied. In full disclosure, I also followed a bunch of artists on Instagram, but it’s my hope that those times I choose to open the app (see below), that it’ll make my time there more inspiring and feed back into my offline life.
I downloaded the One Sec app. This doesn’t help with the phone thing as a whole, but it does help with social media. Essentially you set up this app and then when you go to open Instagram (for example - but you can set it for any app), it makes you take a one second deep breath then asks if you really want to open Instagram - and shows you how many times you’ve attempted to open it in the last 24 hours. It’s making me a LOT more mindful about just how often I’m trying to open the apps, oftentimes without even realizing I’m doing it. It’s also making me think more about those times I get on to post something right away, when there isn’t a rush. Instead I’ll wait until later and then when I feel like scrolling or responding to DMs, I’ll do it all at once instead of opening the app multiple times and getting sucked into the scroll over and over.
I’m lessening how much I share. Again, this relates more to social media. But I’ve talked recently about my new Instagram strategy and I still stand by the majority of that (though my post designs have changed). And because I’m not focused on sharing every single day, neither in stories or in the feed, it’s helping me realize that I don’t actually need to be on there constantly.
Plugging in my phone while I read. Now, I’m an incredibly lazy person. If my phone is plugged in across the room and I’m sitting comfortably in my reading chair, chances are very slim I’m going to get up and get my phone just to scroll. If I need it for something, fine. But even then I’m going to question just how desperately I need it at that moment. Sometimes laziness pays off, friends.
Those are the biggest changes I've been making, or am currently making. And when I saw that my screen time last week was just 2.5 hours, I felt very smug about it. Like, hey, look at me! Who needs a phone?! I am a disconnected goddess!
Ask me in a month though if I’m still making it work.
And until then, what are your thoughts on phone addiction? Are you addicted? Are you trying to make a change to your relationship to your phone? If you are, what are the things you’re trying?
Good for you for cutting back on screen time!! I have a different ringtone/text tone for the people in my life that mean the most to me (husband , kiddos , close family) and when I’m reading,like you, I have the phone across the room, so I am not inclined to pick it up to scroll and only if I hear one of the important ringtones, will I pick up my phone… the others can wait. I hope that your reduced screen time and your renewed love of painting will help slow you down and enjoy this season of life.
One more thing, although you are no longer going to be doing your podcast with Mia, I am glad that I found you as someone to follow because I believe that you are a talented writer and I really enjoy reading your thoughts.