It’s Sunday, so that means, at least for a lot of us, we get that annoying message that tells us how much we looked at our phones the past week. In January, I decided that 2020 would be the year that I would quit looking at my phone so damn much. It sounds ridiculous, but I was proud of myself for getting my screen time down to about three hours per day.
This self-congratulation turned into a type of digital self-flagellation several hours ago when a banner popped up on my phone and told me some news I already knew. My screen time was back to an average of over six hours per day. Even worse, 60% of it was devoted to social media. I was not spending that time reading interesting articles or books. Nor was I diving into a new game. I was aggressively refreshing Instagram and reading pointless news updates on Twitter.
After about halfway through writing the previous paragraph, I grabbed my phone and disabled screen time tracking. I suggest you do the same. In my post this morning, I wrote that I am an optimist by nature. However, I am still enough of a realist to know that a screen time metric is not going to do any good for me in the near future.
For so many of us, metrics dominate our lives. At work, we track open rates for emails. We track likes on social media. We have Apple Watches that tell us how hard we work out. Some of us even try to quantify how well we sleep. There are a time and a place for effective metrics and tracking. I wouldn’t be able to do my job in real estate without them. That being said, when you’re stuck at home amid a pandemic, metrics should not rule your life.
Last night, I was doing what I do almost every night to wind down. I was playing MarioCart and listening to podcasts…I know, I’m a nerd. I came across an episode of the mindbodygreen podcast all about COVID-19 induced anxiety. Dr. Ellen Vora brought up a very important point regarding self-care. Self-care should not be just another item on a checklist.
It is vital to practice some form of self-care, but it should not feel like checking items off of a Trello board. An important aspect of self-care, at least for me, is staying in touch with reality, so limiting the amount of time I spend on my phone seems appropriate. It is appropriate in normal circumstances. We are not in normal circumstances, my friends.
Instead of scrolling through Twitter to see the next headline, try finding a new game to play. Instead of refreshing Instagram, try diving into posts of cute dogs. On the topic of cute dogs, give yourself a treat, hop on Twitter, and follow fellow Iowan, @IvePetThatDog.
