How One Controversial Decision Changed My Life
And why I think you should do it too
Ever since I’ve made this one singular change to my life, I’ve felt evermore of an urge to say one thing, and most people won’t like it.
Everyone is addicted to their smartphones.
Since I heavily squashed my phone addiction, which I will get into later, I have noticed many strange things that I feel like nobody else is pointing out and it’s making me feel almost crazy. Everyone is constantly holding their smartphone in their hand. Wherever they go, even to the bathroom, people have to bring their smartphones with them. People are on it almost every moment of the day. I’ve seen it everywhere. During school, while on the train, in line to order a bagel; I could keep going. If you don’t believe me, next time you’re out in public, note how many people are staring down at their phones. I can almost guarantee you that most people will be. Oh, and the average screen time almost being 7 hours? Do I need to prove my case further? (If you don’t believe the 7 hours statistic, go below to the references or just check your own screen time)
Currently, you may be thinking “This isn’t that big of a deal. What’s wrong with smartphones?” The issue isn’t that they’re harmful to you directly and by no means am I marking down the invention and popularization of the smartphone. It’s extremely useful. Having access to Google, GPS, a camera, phone calls, and more all at your fingertips is immensely valuable and has saved many lives in various situations. The problem with them is how they’re designed, and how that, in turn, morphs people into walking phone zombies.
Let me use an example.
Look at the image above from the myfitnesspal app a few years back. The design is very simple, featuring a news feed that doesn’t feature any likes, just comments of those making progress on their fitness journey. There’s your food diary, a calorie breakdown pie chart, and that’s it.
Now look at a newer version of the same app. There are bright intense colors, various widgets with information that was previously more consolidated, and a new newsfeed that additionally has infinite scrolling. (As of writing this article the newsfeed tab has been removed, although many people do want it back)
Now do you understand what I’m saying?
Many apps that you can download are now changing their designs to grab your attention more and keep it there longer than it needs to be. This new malicious design can also integrate short-form content such as TikTok or “TikTok-like” videos. Almost every social media app now has some form of short-form content on its platform. YouTube shorts, Instagram Reels, Facebook Reels, etc. As a result, this can cause people to become more attached to their phones and spend time on them even when there is no reasonable need to.
At any moment of silence, people immediately pull out their phones to “cure” their boredom. For my students out there, remember when there was free time in class and the teacher would normally have to quiet down the class for being too loud? Now, everyone is as anti-social as could be, scrolling on their phones any chance they have free time as they sit in silence. Airports, trains, waiting rooms, store lines, hell even at stoplights too. The fact that most people feel the impulse to go on their phones at a stoplight says it all. I don’t want to make enemies, but if you go on your phone at a stoplight you’re an idiot (with obviously no self-awareness as well, like SERIOUSLY?!?!? AT A STOPLIGHT?!). This constant need to go on our phones has caused our attention spans and moods to be negatively impacted. I don’t have a website to source this, but I do have something better, me.
Before I Quit My Phone
For me and many others, social media was the main reason I was spending anywhere between 5 to 8 hours on my phone daily, specifically YouTube and Snapchat. Scrolling on both app feeds, YouTube shorts and the discovery page, I found myself indulging hours a day into something that wasn’t benefiting me. After I spent time on it mindlessly, I felt a heavy pressure in my brain and a drop in mood. It created this negative feedback loop in which I felt awful for being on my phone to the point that I was too tired to do anything but be on my phone. Seeing posts of people made me feel self-conscious that I was “weird” or “missing out”, and me watching videos of guitar clips and then the next video being shown someone homeless with a child begging for donations made my emotions go haywire. It was taking time away from the things I truly enjoyed, like reading, writing, chess, and weightlifting, to name a few. I was sad, lonely, and resentful, all due to what I was experiencing from being on social media.
So what do I do now?
Why You Should Spend Less Time on Your Phone and Stop Making Excuses
Simply put, apps on smartphones waste your time, decrease your attention span, (can) ruin your mood, and make you feel anxious due to the constant connectivity and situations set up typically by social media apps. When I first started to spend less time on my phone, people didn’t think I was crazy but instead made excuses as to why their phone use was acceptable. Here’s a list of a few that I heard.
- I need my smartphone for work/school
- I use it to learn more about the hobbies I’m into/to get inspiration from
- I need my phone to focus as I have ADHD
- I need it to stay connected
- I have it to get information on things
- I use it when I’m bored
- I use it when I want to relax
- I need it for GPS/travel
- I’m capturing memories
Here’s a rebuttal to all of these
- “I need my smartphone for work/school”
While you can use things like Excel, LinkedIn, Gmail, Google Classroom, Adobe Acrobat, and more on a phone, all of these things can be used on a laptop which is designed to be less distracting and arguably work better on them
- “I use it to learn more about the hobbies I’m into/to get inspiration from”
For example, my friend who said this is really into sports and video games. While you can learn things from social media about those two things, sports are written and talked about through other mediums such as television, articles, and books. Video games normally come with announcements when there are new updates or games. If you care about the sport and the video game, you’ll be around it or on it enough to hear about any updates or learn new things about them.
- “I need my phone to focus as I have ADHD”
This makes no sense and I shouldn’t have to explain further but I kind of have to. Phones can bring out symptoms that are connected to ADHD such as inattention and hyperactive-impulsivity, so no, your phone will not help with your ADHD. (This made me very sad that I had to explain this)
- “I need it to stay connected”
Go talk to somebody. Most of the people you look at on Instagram you don’t even know or barely talk to. If you care about somebody, you’ll ask them in real life about what they did or how they feel about something.
- “I have it to get information on things”
Read a book or talk to somebody. And no, you realistically don’t need Google for more than an hour a day.
- “I use it when I’m bored”
That’s sad, really sad. Maybe use your imagination a bit, you know, like when you were a kid.
- “I use it when I want to relax”
As I have stated before, phones don’t help me and others that I know genuinely relax. While you can watch movies and videos on your phone, there are so many other ways to relax. You can relax by taking a bath, reading, going for a walk, meditation, journaling, and more.
- “I need it for GPS/travel”
Okay, this one is somewhat fair. I could not survive while driving without a GPS. However, you don’t need to use it often unless you travel a lot and even then once you’re off the road there isn’t much else of a need to use it. (You could argue that you need it when walking in, for example, a city. Although, I know you’re using this excuse just so you can feel better about your countless hours of scrolling. I see through your BS.)
- “I’m capturing memories”
Using things like physical cameras, journaling, or scrapbooking are all other ways to document a memory other than your smartphone. And even if you use your phone, you pull it out for a minute, take your photo or video, and then put it away. You’re using this as an excuse to mindlessly scroll for hours and make yourself feel better about it. Yeah, that’s right, I see you :)
Now that you see all the alternatives to do the things you love and need (mostly) without a smartphone, it makes the idea evermore apparent that smartphones are used nowadays to distract or cause distractions for people and that society just hasn’t accepted yet that they can be and are mostly designed to be addicting.
How I Quit
Three things helped me to greatly lower my screen time. An app called ScreenZen, the book Atomic Habits by James Clear, and indulging in hobbies more.
ScreenZen is an app that blocks other apps. There are lots of options and ways that you can limit the apps in regards to how long you can use them if that at all. While I am not sponsored, ScreenZen and other “app blockers” are extremely helpful in reducing your screen time. It makes impulsively going on certain apps more difficult. Furthermore, most of them are free.
James Clears’ Atomic Habits is one of the best books I have ever read. While I could fanboy about it for hours, the main thing I learned from the book was how to make good habits obvious, easy, attractive, and satisfying. Inversely, it taught me how to make bad habits invisible, difficult, unattractive, and unsatisfying. One thing I did was to make the apps I frequently used invisible. I changed my phone layout to only have all the essential apps on one page and removed all the addicting apps from my screen or just deleted them. It would be impossible to include every reason on how it helped me break bad habits and build good ones, so I encourage you to either watch a video about it, read a more in-depth article, or just buy the book yourself.
Spending more time on hobbies that I loved in replacement for the time I would normally spend mindlessly on my phone kept me away from my phone for long periods. It made being off it more attractive as I slowly grew accustomed to getting my joy and entertainment from writing, hanging out with friends and family, reading, playing guitar, and other hobbies.
Final Notes
First of all, thank you for reading my article. I did not intend for it to be this long so it means a lot that you got this far. If you enjoyed my article, please consider following me for more articles and content on mostly health, literature, psychology, mental health, and more. It truly means the world to me.
Overall, I hope this article gave you lots of insight into your phone use and hopefully, it will inspire and encourage you to start spending less time on your phone and more time out in the real world enjoying the things you love. It can be very difficult to break your bad habits of going on your phone for things that aren’t needed, but for me, when I did it gave me back so much time. I felt that I could get more accomplished in a day than I did previously, on top of an improved overall mood and a better attention span. After a few days, I already felt happier. It’s hard, even for me, but I promise you it is so worth it.