This fall I noticed something terrible.
The flashlight of my attention felt tugged towards my phone more often than my kids. You could sit me down in a room with my cell phone in one corner and my kids playing on the opposite corner. If there was any sort of ping on that phone, I’d move toward the phone without even thinking. Like a well-trained dog.
I realized that it was time for a reckoning. Time to reset my habits.
Sometimes I snarled when my boys interrupted the urgent scrolling. Urgent why?
I sensed that I needed to be on my phone. For a reason. Not one I could express with words. It was a feeling.
It wasn’t true.
My phone convinced me that if it wasn’t nearby, I would miss out.
Like Pavlov, my Google Pixel trained me. With my phone nearby, I salivated and fidgeted, waiting for a ping.
Little did I know, the phone was the scientist. I was the dog.
Woof.
As I became more and more aware of how addicted I was to my phone, I realized it was time to make a change.
I knew I needed a change.
So in September, I threw away every smart speaker we owned. I evicted the Google Smart Home and the Amazon Alexa. If it was practical, I would have removed our cell phones too.
I left my cell phone in the car most of the time. Opting for a network-based phone on top of my fridge. Almost like a landline from the 90s.
Furthermore, I threw myself into removing phone addiction from my life.
The first cut was the deepest.
As a result of making sweeping changes, the adjustment was challenging.
The first week without my phone attached flashed between torture and freedom.
Before my phone break, I often felt myself reaching for my phone. Clutching it as I went from one room to the next. I fixated on its location, checking to see if it was nearby. It was the same way that I count my children when we’re at a playground. One on the slide. One in the sandbox. Two kids. Check.
Do you recognize this checking behavior? As a woman, my phone doesn’t live in my pocket. Women don’t have practical pockets in the majority of their clothing choices. My phone floats from my hand to a table, to my bra. It is everywhere and always within arm’s reach.
By the end of my first foray into decreased phone life, I felt blissful. I was on Cloud 9. But, alas, that’s not where the story ends, friends.
Instagram is a Gateway to Phone Addiction Relapse
To illustrate how challenging staying away from your phone can be, let me tell you a story.
Since 2020, I have played with building a social media presence. My identity yearns for an audience. I have thoughts that shout from within my soul.
But, here’s the tricky part, I’m not good at dancing and I can’t compensate for that by being cute.
So Instagram doesn’t work for me.
At least Instagram isn’t my main way of sharing my method. I give great Podcast face and even better writer face (ex. I’m sitting in my favorite men’s sweatshirt, messy bun, drinking a beer as I type).
But, for whatever reason, likely the lack of social media in my previous month, I felt compelled to return. I woke my Instagram account back up. Showed up in Instagram stories every day. Talked and talked to an audience that was not looking for what I had to offer.
It was embarrassing and a little hurtful to my ego, but there was something worse.
What was worse than talking to an empty room of Instagram viewers? The fact that my phone usage spiked all the way back up to six hours per day.
Six.
I could vomit.
That is to say, I refused to let Instagram steal that much time from my life without a big fight.
The first step was awareness.
Let me tell you how I started my intervention.
For a few weeks, I unemotionally jotted down my screen time at the end of each day.
I didn’t judge myself for the numbers. I knew that it was a true addiction.
My ADHD diagnosis makes me even more likely to become addicted to anything. I’m pretty sure someday researchers will find out that ADHD increases phone addiction.
That pisses me off, which is good. When I’m mad I’m motivated.
The second step was changing the environment.
I noticed how strange it felt to be doting on an electronic device the way I did. Whenever I left a room, I would check on it. Almost as if I was checking in on my youngest child, making sure it was okay.
I noticed that having the phone completely out of the house cut the umbilical cord between me and my phone.
The concept is like the way our society has tried to dissuade smokers from smoking in public. I have created a space where I use my phone, but it is very small and out of the line of sight of my children (as much as possible).
My phone resides on the windowsill of my mudroom. Lurking out of the way with the ringtone up full blast, but otherwise silent.
For car rides, my phone used to ride shotgun. Ready for a quick check at a red light or for a scrolling session in the school pickup line. Now my phone rides in the trunk, along with my credit card. (this is a fantastic deterrent for my drive-thru coffee addiction too!)
The third step was understanding the impact of my phone addiction
Six hours is a lot. A whole lot. It’s a few minutes before school pickup. It’s every bathroom trip.
It’s the moments when my kids drive me nuts. The lonely minutes waiting for my husband to call. The end of the day minutes when I’m avoiding my thoughts.
The worst part for me is the impact on my children. The hundreds of opportunities to connect and teach. The loss of that is impossible to describe.
The next phase is maintenance, prevention, and consistent reflection
From where I sat in the fall, I felt like I would never return to the heights of my addict behavior again. Yet here I sit. Only a few days ago my phone usage was six hours (for reference, I’m awake for around 15 hours each day).
Right now, I’m present. I’m grounded in the moment. I’m producing more than I’m consuming. I’m reading more real books. Having longer conversations. Making more eye contact.
I’m back in the high of living my real life. I’m a bit afraid to fall off the bandwagon again.
For now, I’m going to continue my new habits, leaving my phone in the mudroom, and driving with my phone in the trunk.
My Instagram experiment has a clear conclusion: I’m deleting my account. It may read like a bad business move, but it is a fantastic life move.
How is your phone impacting your life?
Here’s a gentle prompt for you. Start to notice your phone usage. Ask yourself why am I picking this up? Get curious about what is calling you to your phone. Does your reason need to happen now?
Cultivating your curiosity is a great first step.