I have decided to break up with my phone. Yes, after many years, the relationship has become toxic, so I have decided to end it.
As I write this in early August 2024 recent incidents in the news have made me realise that unchecked and addictive phone use is one of the poisons in modern life.
The way the Main Stream Media present the news is depressing and social media is often divisive.
When I came off using my phone, after checking the news and social media, I suddenly realised I felt internally angry. I looked round the room I was in and there was nothing in my immediate surroundings to make me so angry. No one else was there. Its madness that a small device could make me so angry.
‘This is not me’, I thought to myself, allowing something external to influence my emotions. Surely one should be master of their own emotions, no matter what the provocation.
Possible solutions
This can’t go on and so as I see it, there are only three possible solutions.
1. Will power to stay positive.
The first solution is to continue using my phone in the same uncontrolled way but use sheer willpower to control my emotions. No matter what the algorithms send me, I will stay on an even keel.
2. Only find positive.
The second solution, I can think of, is to continue using the phone but only find things of a positive and uplifting nature. This could be tricky as the applications on the phone are addictive by design and algorithms on social media, for instance, reward those posts which garner more engagement. More often these are of a divisive and controversial nature. The danger might be that I get drawn in to negative content.
3. Break up with my phone.
My third option is to break up with my phone completely. This might mean completely resetting and re-evaluating how I use my phone. This option seems to be the hardest at first, but counterintuitively may turn out to be the easiest overall. So, the option I have chosen is to break up with my phone.
Addictive devices
Manufacturers design smart phones to be addictive. This is bad enough as we shouldn’t become addicted to a device. After all, I am not addicted to my toaster. It serves the useful purpose of toasting bread and then I leave it alone. The problem with smart phones is that every aspect of them is designed to be seductive. From their shape and colour down to the design of each icon, the phone entices us to pick it up.
Much more destructive though are the apps. The app designers have, through iteration, produced many ways to seduce you to use them and then get you hooked. Social media companies offer their products for free. Think about why that is. Is it maybe that we the consumer are the product? Through paid advertising the Social Media companies earn their money through selling your attention to advertisers. These advertisers are selling either directly or indirectly through affiliate marketing, either products or their influence, to get you to think in a certain way. I have no problem with marketing, after all, I work in Sales and Marketing. However, I now realise that I am being manipulated to engage with these apps and devices to my detriment.
May be its time I stopped consuming.
Time management
Many phones have a feature in the settings called Screen Time, where you can check the amount of time you are using the phone and even which app you are using the most. The last time I checked I was shocked and embarrassed to see I had been staring at my phone for an average of 2.5 hours per day. The worst day was over 5 hours. This is frightening and I am ashamed. The only slight mitigation to this is that I only use the phone for work during working hours and I don’t have the phone in the bedroom at night.
Think about that. 2.5 hours a day scrolling mindlessly. Not just the damage this is causing neurologically (more on this later), but the opportunity cost of this.
And here are two serious opportunity costs:
Financial
If the average (Median) salary in the UK is £35k which equates to £16.83 per hour, this means at 2.5 hours per day, you are wasting £42.07 per day. That is like wasting £11k per year. Yikes. Oh, and this doesn’t include the money you spend on things you don’t want or need because of the adverts you saw..
Learning
How about how much you could have learned in that time. If a standard non-fiction book has a word count of 100,000 words and you can read 250 words per minute, it would take you about six and a half four hours of reading to finish. Therefore, with your 2.5 hours per day you could read over two books per week.
What about say learning a new language or a skill like learning a musical instrument. A common myth is that you can master any new skill by practising for 10,000 hours or just under 11 years if we use our spare 2.5 hours a day. Ok, you might not want to become an expert at your new skill. However, the point is that if you use those 2.5 hours per day practising some new skill, you could become proficient new and useful.
Change in brain neurology.
Have you ever picked up your phone and forgotten why you picked it up. You know you picked it up for some reason, but a notification distracted you and now you can’t remember. Its scary isn’t it. Research has shown that indeed overuse of smart phones can have a negative effect on your mental health. And that’s not all, our attention spans are lessening. Some people are unable to concentrate on a task for very long before they feel the urge to do something more stimulating. This means that we are unable to perform the deep concentrated work to finish a project or achieve a goal.
Did you know that the executives of tech companies will limit or ban the use of smartphones and screens for their children? Why would that be? Because they know the neurological damage they can cause.
Still need it for work
The big drawback to all this breaking up with your phone is that I still need a phone, to make and receive phone calls. What about when you are out and about and someone needs to get hold of you in an emergency? That’s why I’m going to get a dumbphone.
Robin Sharma talks about the 2-phone protocol, where you have two phones. One stripped down phone which just makes and receives calls and has text messaging. The other phone would be just for those apps you really need. For instance, my Manchester United season ticket. I need the phone for scanning into the stadium. Another example would be boarding passes for flights and train tickets. I also regularly use maps and the camera. Oh, and I’ve just realised I enjoy listening to music and podcasts in the car, connected by Bluetooth to my phone.
So, I’m going to have the dumbphone for everyday use and keep the smartphone for only when I specifically need it. I will also remove all the apps apparent from the essential. I may miss those times when I can just jump on Google to get an answer to some question immediately, but how about going back to a time when you had to wait for the answer. It may just promote patience, which is sadly lacking in today’s world.
Long deep thinking
Smart phones are anathema to long deep thinking and deep work. this is the kind of thinking and work where you get into a state where you are totally engrossed in the task. In deep thinking you can examine an issue from all angles to produce the solution.
All meaningful endeavours, for instance, writing a book require periods of deep concentrated work. Yes, you can do meaningful work on just 30 minutes of deep concentrated work per day, however during those 30 minutes you should concentrate your focus.
If you are interested in starting to write, I can recommend my post on the 7 Reasons Why Writing is Good for You, where I describe the benefits of this great pastime.
Smart phones, with their distractions and attention smashing apps, prevent you from getting into the mindset required to undergo a period of deep concentrated thought. People who have spent more time scrolling on their phones are more likely to be distracted and their mind more apt to wander.
Therefore, another reason why I am breaking up with my phone is to promote the mindset conducive to deep thought and work
Embrace boredom.
I hate being bored, everyone does. When I was a child, wet Sundays were particularly boring. There was nothing on TV, there were only three channels and they went off in the afternoon. However, when I look back during those times, I always found a way of alleviating the boredom. It wouldn’t take long for me to think ‘I’ve got an idea.’
We don’t here that saying much these days – ‘I’ve got an idea.’ Think about that for a while. Does that mean we aren’t getting ideas anymore? Is this because we hate boredom? We feel we should fill any free-thinking time with distraction.
Waiting in a queue – check your emails. Long journeys sitting on a plane or train must be filled by watching films on your tablet or scrolling on your phone. How about just staring out of the window? Whatever happened to just staring out of the window? I love getting the window seat on a flight and I can easily spend 4-5 hours just staring at the earth below, even if it is just ocean or clouds. That’s when I get my best ideas.
Break up with your phone. Embrace boredom. I think the world will be a better place for it.
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Inspiration from Catherine Price – How to break up with your phone.