Digital What?
How & Why I Started Cutting Down My Screen Time
I have been running a bit of a personal experiment over the past several weeks. I have begun dipping my toes into the world of digital minimalism. What is the world of digital minimalism you might ask? It is a philosophy that seeks to maximize the benefits of using modern technology while minimizing its harm. Primarily this is focused on use of smartphones and social media. Laptops, TVs, tablets, etc. are not excluded. But the portability of phones gives them a unique entry into our day to day lives. But before I get into all that, let’s talk about why I’m even interested.
Why I Am Cutting Down My Screen Time
Over the past several months, my wife has been kindly suggesting that I am spending too much time looking at my phone. Lest you think she is overreacting, allow me to offer context. We have been married since 2009. We have 5 beautiful kids who are all 6 years old and younger. I work full time as a pastor and she and I both work at our small private counseling practice. Needless to say, I have little free time. She was noticing that in the limited time I did have, I wasn’t focusing on her or our kids, I was staring at my phone like a dope. Initially, I brushed her off. She was persistent and I eventually looked at the cold hard facts:
I was spending, on average, over 4 hours per day on my phone. As I looked back over the weeks, there were many days that were over 5 hours and a few that were over 6 hours. I was faced with the reality that I was spending too much time staring at my phone and I was missing out on everything that was happening around me. One Friday night, after everyone was sleeping, I took a deep dive on YouTube looking into dumb phones and what it might be like to switch to one. And that is how I discovered digital minimalism.
Dumb Phones, Minimalism, and Me
What is a dumb phone you might be wondering. It is a cell phone from back in the early days of cell phones. They make calls. They text with T9 (the worst possible way to send a text). And that’s about it. When I realized that I was spending so much time on my phone, my initial thought was to simply switch to a dumb phone. As I spent time researching this, I quickly realized that a dumb phone wouldn’t really be a possibility for me due to my various responsibilities. But in the process of researching them, I discovered digital minimalism.
As I mentioned before, digital minimalism in its most basic form is seeking to maximize the benefits of technology while minimizing its invasion into our lives. It is a philosophy of tech use that encourages us to determine our own set of values for our lives and the using tech to support and further those while minimizing the harm that can inevitably come from technology. Essentially, digital minimalism is prioritizing tech use in a way that allows us to still live our lives. I found this idea to be extremely intriguing but also somewhat intimidating. As you can see, I use my phone a LOT so the idea of limiting it was a bit anxiety inducing. But in the vein of wanting to be more fully engaged in my life, I decided to give it a shot.
How I Integrated Digital Minimalism
I began experimenting with this idea by altering the way my phone operates. For the record, I currently use a OnePlus 7T. It is an Android phone, which means I have the ability to customize the appearance of my phone in ways that iOS users can’t (sorry Apple people). The first step I took toward digital minimalism was to install the Minimalist Phone launcher from QQ Labs. It makes the home screen of my phone look like this:
It’s intent is to remove the bright colors and icons that draw our attention. It also limits the number of apps that can be accessed from the home screen. A simple swipe to the left opens a similar looking list that includes all of the installed apps. I have found that using this launcher has reduced the number of times I mindlessly open an app. As you can see, the apps that I have chosen do not include social media. I do have those installed (I manage my church’s social accounts so I have to) but if I want to access them then I have to intentionally do that. This launcher has been super helpful in forcing me to rethink how I am using my phone and how I am choosing to access certain aspects of it.
My second step into digital minimalism was leveraging focus mode on my phone and an app called Lock Me Out. Focus Mode is a built in feature of all phones that are currently made, Android and iOS. What does focus mode do? It blocks access to specific apps on your phone for a set period of time or a set schedule. My understanding is that iOS allows users to set multiple schedules throughout the day and week. Android only allows one schedule to be set. So my phone currently enters focus mode at 10:00 PM and that continues until 8:00 AM. It blocks me from 95% of the apps in my phone. However, since I can easily bypass that system if I want to, I downloaded Lock Me Out. This is an app that does the exact same thing as focus mode but with some extra features. Once a lock our begins with Lock Me Out, it will allow you 2–5 minutes per hour of “emergency” use of the blocked app you choose but that is it. If you want to end the lock out early, you can only do so by paying them money (you choose how much). For example, my nightly lock out can be ended for $5. I have another daily lock out that bars access to some specific distracting websites that I want to avoid during work. If I want to end that lock out it will cost me $99. As you can likely see, this is a pretty effective blocking strategy.
How Is It Going?
The obvious question at this point is how are things going. And I must say, they are going FAR better than I had anticipated. I have cut my average daily phone use from 4–5 hours per day to less than 2 hours per day. My average last week was 1.8 hours per day. The specific amount each day obviously varies based on what I am doing and what responsibilities I have that day. But overall I’ve cut my use by 60%-80% on any given day.
Needless to say, I am pretty pumped about the results. I have had some initial success in breaking my ties to my phone and being increasingly engaged with the real world around me. This has also inspired me to begin making phone calls to friends instead of texting or commenting on their social posts. I have found that this has increased the quality of my relationships, which is awesome. I have also ruthlessly eliminated friends and followers on my various social media platforms and have deleted several platforms that I decided didn’t match my values (Twitter, TikTok, Snapchat, etc). I have found a new freedom in this way of life and am pretty excited to see where it takes me and my family.
Have you tried digital minimalism? Are you interested? Let me know in the comments!
