Stemming the tide, cutting the cordless
Last week I finally decided to push myself really, really hard to cure myself of phone attachment. For months I’d noticed the seemingly automatic behavior of reaching for my pocket whenever I had the slightest amount of time in which I was not explicitly focused on doing something else. Sometimes the urge came when I was doing something else – I’d be in the middle of a paragraph of a very interesting book and I’d suddenly find myself reaching into my pocket for my phone. Sometimes I managed to resist the urge — to stop my hand — but even when I did that I felt as though I was really in a stand-off with someone else — call him Johnny.
Mind you, there’s not all that much to look at on my phone. I once had a twitter account, but I wasn’t there much, and I deleted the account long before the days of X. I was once moderately active on Facebook, but I stopped posting there (and deleted the app from my phone) in November 2016 and finally deleted my account just over a year ago. I’m retired, and I get very few personal emails and have the luxury of not having to attend carefully to a calendar. But I still felt the urge to look at my phone — perhaps I’ll find an email from a friend, or a response to a blog post. Perhaps I’ll learn about some earth-shattering news event that hadn’t been reported when I read the news earlier in the day. Perhaps I’ll read a really interesting and informative post on Mastodon. (I’ll interrupt myself to say that at least I’ve avoided putting a feed-reader on my phone. That’s something.)
Last week, though, I started leaving my phone in another room some of the time while I read or did other things. I’m happy to say that it made a difference. I’m unhappy to say that the difference it made was more in the realm of changing my overt behavior than it was of changing my mindset. Instead of reaching mindlessly for my phone I was wondering what I would see if I had my phone with me. A few minutes ago, I finished a chapter in one of the books I’m reading. I was reflecting on what I’d read. But Johnny interrupted my reflections suggesting that I might have received an email. However, I resisted at least a bit: instead of reaching for my phone (which, I should admit, was actually in my pocket), I could walk to my desk to check email on my computer. This led me to the thought that I might even delete my email client from my phone. That seemed a bridge too far — how would I check email when I’m away from my home?
In any case, I came to the computer. No email worth reading, but I opened up elfeed to check for RSS postings. At the top of the elfeed inbox was this entry from Manuel:
I was chatting with Kevin earlier today, and since he’s unhappy with his mindless phone usage, I proposed a challenge to him: for the next 4 weeks, each Sunday, we’re gonna publish screenshots of our screen time usage as well as some reflections and notes on how the week went. If you also want to cut down on some of your phone usage, feel free to join in; I’ll be happy to include links to your posts.
That led me to Kevin’s post, where I read this:
For the next month, I will dial down all the teleporting to zero. I deleted all social media apps from my phone, as well as all apps with an infinite inbox (email, RSS feeds, Reddit). If it has pull to refresh, it’s gone too (except the browser, but I may ask the dev of Quiche if there is a way to kill that feature).
It seems the universe is conspiring against me. Or, better, perhaps the universe is conspiring against Johnny. Thanks for the invitation (or is it a challenge), Manuel. I’m in, and I’m bringing Johnny with me.
