I never considered myself “chronically online” until last winter. During winter break, my father and I went to a bookstore to buy some presents for our family. While we were there, a title grabbed my attention: The Anxious Generation. I bought the book and spent the rest of my winter break reading it.
The book, written by social psychologist Johnathan Haidt, goes into detail on the ways that phones and social media usage has changed the childhood of Generation Z, along with the impacts it has had on my generation’s mental and physical health.
The book prompted me to look at my own screen time, which averaged four and a half hours a day. My phone played a part in absolutely everything I did. As spring semester began, I realized my screen time was only creeping up. One unproductive day in my third week back, I checked my phone time. Six hours! I could see the time spent on my top apps: 170 minutes on Instagram, 60 minutes on YouTube, 50 minutes on Google, and 20 minutes on Spotify — but I couldn’t fathom where all of that time came from.
The Challenge
I decided I needed to take drastic measures to lower my screen time. So, I set a challenge for myself: for the rest of the semester, I would only leave the house with a flip phone.
After some research, I chose the blue Nokia 2780 flip phone, which I ordered online from Best Buy. The phone cost $89.99 before shipping and taxes, and it arrived about a week after I ordered it. To switch, I moved my sim card from my smartphone to my flip phone. After a few minutes, the flip phone was able to send and receive texts and make calls.
The first weekend of the challenge, I went out to a friend’s birthday dinner. I only knew a couple of people at the dinner, and I quickly realized that I was almost impulsively opening up my purse to pull out my smartphone when it wasn’t even there. At different points in the dinner, when everyone briefly paused to check their messages, I was surprised by how much I missed my smartphone. Despite my high screen time, I never realized how much I felt like I depended on it in social situations.
In the coming weeks, I realized how deep the dependence on my phone went. When I walked to class, for example, I used to carry my smartphone in my hand. Often I would keep Google Maps open, despite knowing my destination, just because I felt more comfortable with something in my hand telling me exactly when I would arrive. I also used to scroll before bedtime, sometimes for hours. Without my smartphone, I couldn’t do that anymore.
Lessons Learned
Even though it was uncomfortable at first, over time, cutting out my smartphone changed my habits for the better. Without my smartphone, I became a better navigator and more aware of the world around me. I was able to sleep more soundly without a bedtime doomscroll. I also realized I felt significantly more comfortable with brief moments of silence or awkwardness in social situations.
But perhaps the best result I noticed from my semester with a flip phone was how much clearer my mind felt. The random articles and videos I used to read on my phone throughout the day often created chatter in the back of my mind. Instead of focusing on the things that matter to me, I’d see and inadvertently think about old classmates’ vacations, celebrities’ relationships, random product reviews, and strangers’ Shein hauls. After months without that in my pocket, my anxiety over what other people were doing quieted. I finally felt as though my mind became mine again.
I loved the results so much that I kept using my flip phone over the summer. In total, I used the flip phone for seven months before needing to switch back for autumn semester. After switching back, I was almost amazed by the convenience and the ease at which I could contact everyone. Unfortunately, I started falling back into my old patterns pretty quickly, especially regarding Instagram. However, after my experience with the flip phone, I had an easy time deleting the app off of my smartphone and setting screen time limits for myself.
I learned several lessons from my seven months using a flip phone. First, I learned that anxiety and boredom are okay. It is completely fine to not have something in your hands at all times, and it is okay to have a lull in a conversation or an hour of boredom. Second, I learned how to cut out distractions when I need to focus. I can leave my smartphone at home or set my phone on airplane mode when I need to study much more easily than I used to be able to. Third, I learned to be more conscious about how I spend my time. Nowadays, I check my screen time regularly and ask myself why I need to use my phone.
Would I recommend it?
I would definitely recommend this challenge to someone who is struggling with putting down their smartphone. It is a great way to increase productivity, mental peace, and free time. However, I think even without taking such drastic measures there are ways to achieve similar benefits. For example, deleting a social media app that takes up a lot of your time. Delete the app for a specified period of time, for example, a week, to see how it affects your mental well-being and free time.
While I personally plan to keep using my smartphone, I do think that switching to the Nokia 2780 for seven months was a great learning experience for me. It put me a bit out of my comfort zone and allowed me to break a lot of bad habits related to screen time.