I spend a lot of time on social media. Many people do, and while casually visiting an app is not at all a bad thing, recently it has felt like I spend too much time staring at screens. Hours of my day are occupied by scrolling through Instagram and snapchat, and it’s starting to feel like an addiction. Think of all the productive things I could be doing if I wasn’t on my phone? For one, I could catch up on some of my readings for classes that I have neglected. I could start a hobby that might add joy to my life. I could learn something new, like another language or how to play the piano. Not to mention now the UV light from screens affects your eyes, sleep pattern, and skin health, according to Scientific American.
Photo by Valerie Duarte
I am going to start cutting back on my screen time. It’s going to be difficult. We live in such a digitalized age, it’s almost impossible to avoid. A generous amount of my homework is online, as is most of my communication with friends from home and family.
The rules:
My plan is it start small. I’m not going to try to go cold turkey on this one because I know I would fail.
I’m going to start off by limiting myself to 20 minutes for all social media websites (including Instagram, Snapchat, Tumblr, Youtube, etc.) I will also allow myself 30 minutes to watch Netflix since this is something I like to do before I go to bed and would be difficult to give up. But only 30 minutes. Meaning that if I am watching a 40 minute program, I’ll have to wait until the next night to watch the last 10 minutes. That’s still 50 minutes of entertainment based internet usage. To start, I won’t try to limit my internet using when it comes to “essential” tasks, such as submitting homework, checking my email, and texting back my mom.
From there I will access my feelings on the situation and whether or not it was successful and then either subtract minutes or stay at the 50 minute mark. I will start this project on Monday and report back next week.
Wish me luck!