Why I Gave Up My Smartphone
I have long had a love/hate relationship with my phone, its apps, and most network tools, including and especially social media.
I have traditionally been an early adopter of good phones, interesting network tools, and the latest social media platforms. I saw so much potential for good in the world with this new technology. I’ve raised thousands of dollars through social media. I have told stories and promoted brands. I’ve told stories and shared ideas.
But as I have grown, matured, and defined who I am and what I want to be about, things have had to change.
According to this study, the average person spends 2 hours and 22 minutes a day interacting or consuming social media. I am 41 years old. If I live to 70, I have 29 years of life left. If I spend 2 hours and 22 minutes a day on social media from now until the day I die, I will have spent the equivalent of 2 years and 314 days on social media.
What about my daughter, who is 16? Assuming she lives to 70 and the statistics don’t change: 5 years and 120 days.
And that is just social media. That doesn’t include time spent texting, emailing, or Netflix binges.
I recently read this book by Cal Newport (who has quickly become one of my favorite thinkers and writers) and it wrecked me. Two main points really stick out to me:
//Our digital devices, apps, and social media experiences are designed to keep us on them longer.//
The little red notification box on Facebook? It used to be blue and fit with the rest of Facebook’s color scheme. But it didn’t get the frequency of clicks Facebook was hoping for. So, they changed it to red. The alarming color draws more eyes, thus more clicks, thus more time on the service.
When you “drag down to refresh,” your body releases the same amount of addictive chemicals as pulling down a slot machine lever. Coincidence? Don’t be foolish.
Remember, Facebook and Instagram and Candy Crush and Apple and whatever else are businesses. Businesses want to make money. Advertisers pay these businesses more when their ads are in front of you on the screen longer.
As Cal Newport writes, “These services aren’t necessarily, as advertised, the lifeblood of our modern connected world. They’re just products, developed by private companies, funded lavishly, marketed carefully, and designed ultimately to capture then sell your personal information and attention to advertisers.”
//Our values should motivate our technology use, not the other way around.//
We should start with who we want to be and then determine how social media and technology figure into that person and go from there. We need to identify our vision, our goals, and our values first. Then we determine where technology or social media fit into the picture based upon those ideals. No more allowing network tools to dictate to us what we should think, feel, or believe.
I began to be more aware of my own habits. I began to observe what happened in my house when there was a lull in the conversation, or a commercial break, or a few seconds of silence. The phones came out. And we all checked our Facebook. The same Facebook we had checked fifteen minutes ago.
And nothing in the world had changed. I hadn’t missed a damn thing.
The most troubling aspect of all this was how mindless my actions were. I caught myself checking my phone…which meant that it wasn’t at all intentional. I was not aware of what I was doing. I was just doing it.
And that scared me.
I could only think of one suitable course of action.
Drop my smartphone.
The decision was very intentional, and I plan on sharing more on how I came to the decision here in the coming days. Suffice it to know today, though, that this has been one of the most drastic and liberating decisions I have made in my grown-up life.
For me, this issue came down to values and power. Much of what I saw in my own life was that my use of technology did not line up with my personal values. Furthermore, I wanted to reclaim the power I had forfeited to my phone and all of its ornery cronies. This includes my emotions, my mind, and my time.
