On Getting Space From My Intrusive Relationship With My Cell Phone
I recently took a much-anticipated roadtrip out to the West Coast with my boyfriend. In addition to hitting some major cities, we tried our very best to occasionally get off the grid, which really meant one thing: no cell phone reception.
One night, we stayed in a tiny one-room cabin high up in a coastal Oregon forest. We lost cell phone service the second we turned onto the dirt road leading to our accommodations, leaving us with little to do but catch up on reading, brew pots of cinnamon tea on a single plug-in burner, and listen to the peaceful night gather around us through open windows. It was the closest thing to a perfect evening I’ve had in a long time, especially because it was unpolluted by my constant tendency to view my happy surroundings through a meticulously-styled Instagram post or a pseudo-comedienne tweet.
The next night, we camped under towering, moss-strung Redwood trees. Other than taking a few pictures of our excellent tent setup and our top-notch, albeit prematurely built fire (we ran out of fuel before the sun set — oops), our phones lay useless and forgotten while we chatted and read by flashlight or colored in adult coloring books.*
*Yes, adult coloring books are a thing; yes, they are amazing. You can buy a Day of the Dead-themed one, which is the one I picked up in Portland.
I’ll stop reminiscing and get to the point: my boyfriend and I both work jobs we love and are passionate about, but since our job titles both have the word manager in them, our phones tend to be attached to us like an extra appendage (and if they aren’t, they’re never far away). Every ding and every alert is acknowledged even when we’re out of the office. That made our few phone-free nights feel relaxing beyond comparison and, truthfully, even a little strange. Even if our jobs didn’t fuel that behavior, social media consumption is as constant and thoughtless to us as photosynthesis is to a plant. Our connectivity only stops when we sleep.
The average person checks their cellphone 110 times a day.
It made me realize that having a third eye and a second mind inside of a cell phone must be unhealthy if disconnecting made that much of a difference to me not only emotionally but physically, too. Generally, I ignore all those fear-mongering statistics (that’s my “young person” calling card, I guess), but I tend to also ignore my own body telling me it’s time to put the phone away. With tired eyes and buzzing ears, I’ll lay in bed and rapid-fire scroll through Facebook even though I did the same thing 12 minutes before. It’s a little messed up, really—for us 20-somethings who remember the world before smart phones, we’re perhaps the most addicted of all.
That being said, we’re a generation that can obviously adapt well to changing technologies and make informed decisions about how to experience them, but we already feel the continual stress of being stuck down a technological rabbit hole. Setting limits feels important, but since I can’t just make it easy by being in a cabin in the wilderness any time I’d like, I have a few small remedies for daily life that help keep my beloved phone at a little more than arm’s length away.
I consciously replaced the act of compulsively checking my phone with a screen-less hobby.
I’ve always been an avid reader, so it was pretty easy to initiate a phone-less reading hour to replace my habitual Internet prowling or email-checking before bed. From 10:30 or 11-ish to when I get too tired to focus, I resume where I left off in my current book and leave my phone in another room so I won’t cave to temptation. Apart from the glorious fact that I now zoom through books more often than I ever did, I also give my eyes some better lighting for resting, which is important given that using your phone before bed is proven to be really, really awful for you.
If you’re not much of a reader, there’s a plethora of other things you can do.
Go for a walk — but leave your phone inside.
Cross stitch — but use a craft book as a guide.
Volunteer — but don’t Instagram it.
Take a fitness class — but, again, don’t Instagram it. Seriously, please don’t.
Take up watercoloring.
Have a mini-spa hour.
Go get a massage.
Make a choice to do a tech-free activity that betters you and makes you feel better. Finally, do it often enough that it becomes your normal routine.
I plan ahead so I can turn off without freaking out.
The week before I went on vacation, I planned my absence like a mad woman specifically so I could forgo cell service and not worry myself to death over whether my co-workers would need to reach me. I drummed up a printed guide to keep my team in the know and made sure they were in the loop on everything that could come down the pipe. And it worked: the only time my co-workers talked to me was to kick me off Slack or ask me how my trip was going.
If you have it in your control, you can do this at just about any time outside of work hours to give yourself some space from your screens. If you need an evening with your close friends or family without a distraction or want to have a true weekend away, set yourself — and those around you — up for success by working just a little bit ahead.
I deleted my most problematic, least-fulfilling apps from my phone, including Facebook.
Yep, I did. Cold turkey. Facebook is just a constant feed of garbage information, and I can’t believe I spend as much time on it as I do, especially because a lot of my “news feed” is just politically charged nothingness that spoils my mood or BuzzFeed articles that rarely empower me to actually use my brain. I know, I know, you’re thinking, “Tell us how you really feel!” Since Facebook makes me feel so unfulfilled, why do I check it compulsively? Why do you? We’re addicted to the act itself.
After a few days, I get used to not having the feeds I’m used to checking at my disposal. Although it takes just a little bit of self-discipline, it reduces my daily browsing time by another percentage and makes me feel like I’m regaining some actual brain activity. I have to regularly ask myself, “Is checking this app often actually improving my happiness?” If it’s not, I give it the boot.
I’m honest with myself about my weaknesses with phone use from the get-go.
A lot of my constant phone use can be attributed to my job and disposition to be on social media often, but another aspect of it is my personality. I wouldn’t call myself shy, though I do tend to shut down in social situations in which I only know a few people or dread making small talk (this is the part where all the introverts reading this collectively nod in grave understanding). My first instinct when I’m in a big group of strangers or slight acquaintances is to pull out my phone and start tapping on it in a very purposeful way, when in fact I’m bored to tears or simply feeling self-conscious.
Other times, I’ll even be spending a fun night with my close friends and still pull out my phone to get caught up on a deserted work conversation or look through Instagram’s “Explore” tab. It’s rude, but I still get caught up in it before I even realize what I’m doing. Lately, in either situation, I force myself to leave my phone buried in my purse or turn it off completely in order to challenge myself to live in the moment (and honor my friends’ time).
This all nearly goes without saying that I haven’t nailed down the perfect formula for limiting my cell phone use on my own time when it comes to my personal life and my professional life, but I’m taking those initial steps. At the very least, it motivates me to try harder to leave work at work and remind myself that life experiences should happen for the benefit of simply living, not seeking out the approval of others on social media or avoiding real-life interactions. The end goal is healthy consumption, which requires self-reflection and action.
If you’re a smart phone user, you can probably relate to the frustration of feeling like you can’t disconnect. For me, it might be a struggle until our smart phones turn on us and leave us simple beings behind (à la Her). However, trying my best to limit my cell phone use helps me manage my professional time and personality quirks better. It’s well worth the effort and it makes me a happier person. If you think it might help you, I encourage you to find your own course of action. If you already have your own set of rules, be sure to comment and let me know — I’d love to read them!
