The invention of the iPhone is truly a wonderful thing. I love everything I gain access to when I open my phone. I love how efficiently it scans my face so I don’t have to type in a password. I love how I can stream music and text my friends and call my parents. I’m nearing crazy cat lady status with the amount of pictures I have on my phone of my cat. But I also really don’t like my phone. I don’t like how my first instinct out of boredom is to scroll through all of the various algorithms on the various social media apps I have downloaded, or how miserable everyone is in the comments. I don’t like how easily it can distract me when I’m trying to focus, and it hinders my productivity.Â
Up until around two years ago, my weekly screen time averaged nearly 13 hours a day. This may have fluctuated around periods where I was working over 40 hours a week, but it always reverted to 12 or 13. Today, my report stated three hours and five minutes. I’m still trying to find more hobbies to fill my time with, but I’ve found ways to lower the number.
Once I really committed to reading, it was easy to sit down for multiple periods of a couple hours a day without picking up my phone. For a long time, I couldn’t get into reading. I’d read a page, a page and a half maybe, and get bored and distracted and put the book down. I never read anything I was invested in. Once I finally found the right genres, styles, and authors, it became so easy. Now, I sit down to read and suddenly two hours have passed, and that’s just when I think to quickly check my phone. I’ll keep going, half a day gone by.
I’ve also really reduced the amount of time spent on my phone at work and at school. At work, during slow periods where everything is done and there’s no customers to help, I’ve replaced phone time with a book. I’ll check it every few hours or when I need to contact my boss, but other than that, it stays face down near my bag. When I’m walking to work or class, I only use it for music, and it stays in my pocket unless I’m changing the song. I keep it face down or in my backpack in class, and I won’t see my notifications until we’re dismissed. I like to think that’s more respectful toward my professors anyway.Â
When I’m with my friends, I try not to have my phone in my hands or on my body, so I’m not tempted to flip it over and open it. I like being more present and focused on them and our conversations. I like when it actually feels like we’re spending time with each other, and not just spending time around each other. When I lived with three other girls and we’d all get together at the end of the day to hangout, I’d accidentally leave it in their rooms after heading to bed. Almost an hour would go by before I realized it was gone. I kind of liked how easily I could just forget about it, like I barely needed it in the first place.
I’m trying to find more physical hobbies to fill my time with, not just for reasons related to lowering my screen time, but just for my own personal benefit. However, even with only a few, it’s easy to find small ways to get off your phone. I love how easily I can connect to the world through it, but it doesn’t need to take over my life. I’m not interested in living through my phone.