Digital Minimalism
Over the last few months, or maybe even couple of years, I have battled with my smartphone and social media usage. It often reminds me of that scene in the movie, A Bugs Life. You know the one? Where one bug says to the other, “Don’t go into the light.
The other bug replies, “I can’t help it; it’s so beautiful.” And then poof. He is zapped. This is me with my phone and social media, and I am sure it is others, maybe even you, reading this. You don’t want to live on your phone; you don’t want to spend, three, four or even five hours a day or more browsing social media, but you do.
I wrote a post mid-September about social media and smartphones destroying reading habits. I got many replies from people in the same place as me. They read less, it made them upset, and they spent more time on their phones, social media or both than they liked, yet they couldn’t stop it even though it made them unhappy.
I was one of those people. I would tell myself to use my phone less, and it would work for a day or so, but then I’d start making excuses to go on my phone, and by the end of the week, my habitual usage would be back to the same levels, and I would feel deflated because I’d once again failed to make a difference in my own life, for myself.
Why is This?
Try not to beat yourself up so much. Social media and smartphones are strategically made to keep you addicted. It has often been said that the smartphone industry is the new tobacco industry. It is as addictive.
Companies like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and many others employ people to come in and tweak their platforms for optimal usage by people. Have you ever played a game like Candy Crush? Do you ever notice you get stuck on a level, and when your attention to the game starts to wane, suddenly you pass the level? It is not a fluke or just a chance. It is the way the game is designed to keep you coming back and back and back.
Let’s face it, the more you use your phone and social media, the more money these companies make. And they want you pulling your devices out of your pocket as often as possible. Basically, these platforms are selling your attention and time to advertises, and we give it to them freely.
A Holiday?
I am on a small holiday at the moment. I am in Berlin for the weekend with my wife. How many times do you notice, when you go on holiday, you pull out your phone? For me, it seems I end up using my phone more when I am away than I do in my everyday life.
You see it on the plane. People have their phones switched back on and connected way before the plane has even pulled into the airport. The minute that plane touches down, people turn off flight mode and start reconnecting. I do it.
2005 and was the first time I went to Florida. I had a mobile phone — a Nokia brick. Data roaming and Wi-Fi weren’t buzzwords of the traveller. In fact, I didn’t even have a plan that allowed me to use my phone abroad. For the two weeks of the trip, my phone sat in my suitcase turned off and it wasn’t turned on again until I was back in my house.
I didn’t need it either.
When we landed, or were at least coming into land, myself, and the kids had our noses pressed to the window of the plane and were viewing the outside world with such wonder. What a fantastic sight it was to see. This new country, a new state where none of us had been before.
We experience every part of that holiday by living in the moments. Any pictures we had were taken on cameras that had a film loaded into them. By the time we were done on holiday, I had rolls of film to take to the supermarket to get developed. Not a single one of us had to pose and take the same picture thirty times to get the right angle for social media. We didn’t take photos of our food or cups of coffee from the coffee shops. There were no selfies.
When we were flying home and coming back into England, we watched with awe as our plane came in. We pointed out what places we could see. We got excited to be home. We were tired but happy, and our heads were filled with such memories.
It is so different now. Like I said, phones are out the moment we land. We take selfies with signs to show people where we are. We Snapchat our friends, we Instagram our photographs. We become so immersed in our digital lives; we forget to live our real lives.
How many times do you post a picture whilst on a holiday and then check how many likes it got? People delete images that have no likes. Instead of leaving it on their platform for their own memory, they delete it, feeling somewhat disheartened and ignored by the digital world. It isn’t good.
Digital Minimalism
I am not talking here about ditching your iPhone forever or deleting social media for good. Digital minimalism is a way to claim back your attention and use smartphones and social media intentionally.
For the last week, I have been pretty good with regards to my phone. About a week ago, I went through my phone and deleted applications that served no real purpose in my life. I also went to the browser on my phone and blocked access to social media. While I had deleted applications like Facebook and Twitter off my phone, I was still finding ways to bypass it by using Safari and viewing the social media in a web browser. It was cheating.
I have made my phone work for me. I realise the important applications I have are —
Strava — For running
Fitbit — A health tracker
Maps — For getting around
Audible — Because I love audiobooks
Spotify — Because I also love music
In addition to these, I also kept applications like my banking app, the app where I do the weekly food shop, the weather, ring doorbell app. Basically, I kept applications that worked for me and weren’t there intending to steal my attention.
It was weird. I found myself so often opening my phone, staring and wondering what I am supposed to do now. I even complained to my wife; I have made my phone boring.
Until recently, my screen time had got a little out of control, and I was racking up around twenty-nine hours a week of phone use time. That’s a lot. Across a year, that’s 1,508 hours or almost 63 full days lost per year to my phone. That’s way too much. That’s over two months every year lost, to what?
This last week, my phone usage dropped to an average of seventeen hours for the week. While it is nor perfect and works out at 36 days across the year, it is a lot better than it was.
Digital Detox
I want to take my time reduction on my phone a step further. I am so tired of checking my emails constantly, or browsing news feeds and checking what other people are doing. I want to read more. I want to live my life better and fuller than I feel I am doing at the moment.
But I do use social media for work. As an online writer, social media is where my readers are; it is where I need to share my things. Social media for me needs to be intentional, because while I know and understand how these big companies sell our brains, so many other people don’t.
I want to set myself a challenge.
You’re more than welcome to join me, and you don’t have to stick to my rules. Create your own and what works for you and what you need.
1. Clear all unneeded applications off the phone. While I have already done this, I am sure there are others I can get rid of. There are applications such as Kindle and Medium hiding in the shadows, and while I don’t often use them on my phone, I know eventually I will start to use them as a replacement for social media.
2. No screens in bed. This will be hard for me. I don’t scroll, but I do spend too much time on messenger when I should be sleeping, and this means I go to sleep late, and then I wake later than I want, and then I lose time. I enjoy chatting with friends there. But this means I have to contact them intentionally. I have to make sure I sign off and say goodnight and actually go to bed. For me, this rule, I hope will bring back my reading. I always used to read in bed. I loved it. I want it back. I can’t do that if the first and last thing I do for the day is pick up my phone.
3. Check Emails once per day. Another hard one for me, although I did delete the mail application from my phone, which did wonders for me, I still log on and check it too many times when I am at my MacBook. I should be working. For this one, it isn’t setting it to a specific amount of time; it is making it that it happens once a day. So if replying to emails takes me an hour daily or ten minutes, so be it. But once I have finished, that’s it until tomorrow.
4. YouTube. I am not sure how this one will work. I probably need to set myself a limit of no more than thirty minutes a day. Although I never use it to procrastinate. It is something I enjoy and don’t do it just to waste time. The downside is, I watch a lot of YouTube in bed and this also makes me sleep too late. So, the rules here. No YouTube in bed. No more than thirty minutes a day.
5. Social media. No scrolling. Now no scrolling is easy enough for me. I have got out of this habit a lot. I try and go on and use Facebook intentionally. But I do obsessively check notifications. Social media will only be used when I need to share something. But I will not check notifications, and I will not scroll. Any interaction with people will be intentional. I think this also needs a limit and a schedule. All social media usage should be done in a single period in the evening.
If you want to do this with me, I’m going to aim for follwong these rules for seven days from the 1st September. That’s Tuesday. Make your own rules, though and what fits in with your life and your intentions.