Phone Zombie to Successful Writer: My Social Media Detox
How I ditched smart phone noise and found my voice
The start
My phone notification buzzes, and a blue bird becomes an X it lands on my mental tree. A clickbait headline. A meme. News about a country that I’ve barely heard of. An argument over something unimportant. Maybe it was pineapple on pizza. Grabbing my digital keyboard, I reply to the virtual high school bully who soon spews their poison of hatred and control.
Back to scrolling for more information that I will never need but will still slam into my mind. A moment of discontent, anger at the alert, pure rage as my eyes scan their scathing response, my brain searching and scratching for a soul destroying reply.
Just another day, I found myself lost in a river of turds. The guilt begins, a familiar weight in my stomach. This wasn’t the kind of writer I wanted to be. This wasn’t the writing that I had imagined, mindlessly replying to the mindless. My word count flutters around the platform, a pointless post here, an inane reply there. Followers growing without any growth.
The realization
I had become the ultimate horror of our time. The dreaded “phone zombie.”
I take a deep breath and leap at an unthinkable idea. My fingers push on icons on my phone. One, two, three, and finally four. The silence is overpowering, the lack of high-pitched pings slightly unsettling.
Through this sudden hush, a new sound whispers from deep inside, a slight sound barely audible, the sound of my almost forgotten voice. My fingers, long accustomed to writing in short bursts, now itch to create, to tell a story, to inform and amuse.
Opening a fresh page, I write a title ‘My Experiment With Digital Detox’
The reality
Unfortunately, as a writer, it just isn’t possible to become a digital hermit. Messages and notifications from readers and other writers demand some of my precious creating time. I have, however, deleted all the social media apps from my phone. The pure amount of time I was wasting staring at the phone screen watching stupid time-wasting videos or reading mindless articles about whoever or whatever was unbelievable.
A testament to the power of digital minimization
I want to reclaim the time and mental space I’ve surrendered to endless junk. And use that time productively. Rather than giving views and therefore money to some unknown person online, I want to receive views and therefore money for myself!
This experiment isn’t over. I still stumble and reach for my phone out of habit, but now that there’s nothing on there I can pause and think before reinstalling. “Is this serving me?”
It’s hard! It is! When I am sitting around waiting for an Uber or a train, I have nothing to do. I feel my fingers going towards the App Store. But I resist, like people have to resist drunk texting an ex. Because we all know how that’s going to turn out, right?
Almost daily I have to remind myself, that the world won’t stop turning just because you aren’t giving people your wisdom or more likely lack of it on social media. And I think you the reader could benefit from this, too.
What has deleting the phone apps has done for my writing?
First, things are a lot quieter during my writing time. I don’t have a massive social media following I think my Twitter (X) account has around 1800 followers. I am not that active on there but read a lot. My Facebook account is mainly for family and a few friends, so this was taking up a lot of time as I live in Asia most of the time rather than my native UK.
It has made a difference, though. I write for around two or three hours in the morning and now I am writing for that whole time rather than waiting for a reply from my sister or whoever. So obviously I am getting a lot more done.
What this has done for my personal life
The main difference is when I am out with the family. Rather than looking at my phone or grunting ‘Umm” or something else noncommittal, I am paying attention to what’s going on around me. I think that this has improved my life a lot. I am more in-tuned with what is going on rather than watching Mr. Beast or whoever doing stuff that is irrelevant to my life.
Thanks for reading!
Paul
