True Life: I’m Addicted to my Phone

I’m an Addict

Welp. That doesn’t feel good to say out loud. I know this is true for me, and I know this is so true to so many others. I look at my screen time, and I fucking CRINGE when I see that I’ve looked at my fucking phone for 8 hours. in. one. day.

I pride myself in not having that many vices. I barely drink, or smoke weed, and even drinking coffee makes me anxious. A moral code akin to the most high strung Mormons. But there is an elephant in the room, and its the real chokehold that having a smartphone holds. I truly believe it is behind so many of the mental health crisis’ we see. Yes, the world is on fire, but the chokehold of staring at a blue light from hours at a time will be something that will be studied in history books for decades to come as a catalyst of an incredibly different existence.

Phone Free Life

Lets back up a little bit. It is 2017. I’m living in the French Quarter of New Orleans. I have a flip phone. I just started a business. I’m living with my then husband. I am vegan, aggressively paying off student loans, doing Pilates everyday, regularly uploading to a YouTube channel, reading 80 books, and wroting a goddamn book. In short, better than everybody.

Typically, you would see all of that and think “dang, that must be close to burn out”. Honestly, I never felt like I was there. Everything I was doing had vision and purpose behind it. Inspiration coursed through my veins, and getting up at 6 am to write my book felt fucking amazing . In hindsight, I felt like I had so much more time when I didn’t get stuck in the cathartic and sadistic doom scroll. Ididn’t have a smartphone literally sucking the life out of me.

In my early twenties and teens, I never had a smartphone. And sometimes I never had a phone. I would travel the world without a phone, and relied on kismet strangers to give me the time, or directions. I still have the mantra “whenever my phone dies, that’s when the magic happens”. And in turn, the times when I didn't have a phone, I was connected to the world around me in a way that seemed nothing but whimsical and exciting, although at times unfiltered, chaotic, and heartbreaking.

*Black Mirror* made us all want to yeet our phones into the river for a couple weeks

Back To Reality

Now, we flash forward to 2023. And I’m addicted and tired of my phone. It does not bring me joy, and I feel like the thoughts that I think are no longer mine anymore. Watching 7 second videos is absolutely destroying my attention span, and I find an urge to check my phone constantly. Sometimes, my thumb will cramp from scrolling so much. How did I end up here? I never wanted to get a smartphone, because I saw everyone became mind numbingly addicted to it.

I am not one to do things with boundaries. For example, if there are sweets in the house- I will eat them. So I just don’t keep sweets in the house. I feel the same way about my phone. I do not want to have it around. I do not know how I can limit myself to 1 hour of phone time, without completely altering the way that I live.

3 years ago, I created a 5 year plan of being smart phone free. Well baby, I have 2 more years to keep this goal alive. This is a goal that my heart still burns for, and I think I just have to send it.

How To Spend Less Time on My Phone:

A sexy boat romance would surely decrease my screen time

1) work on a cruise ship and literally socialize with my peers and sing sea shanties and have casual sex like we are in high school. This one does sound exciting, and could have a side effect of sea delusion.

2) Live in Paris and get rid of service on my phone, and only have it operate with Wifi, while I have a flip phone for functional use. Also, submerging in a language, I typically find myself unwilling to want to engage in English a bunch- and really focus on the language I’m trying to learn.

3) Be a barista. I’m not sure how this will make me spend less time on my phone- but I think it will.

4) set a firm 1 hr limit on my phone, and track it daily and reward or punish myself accordingly. This one needs workshopped a bit, but you get the point. This seems the less likely, as I said before- I am not great with setting limits on myself and become a greedy goblin whenever I get the chance.

5) Start writing more. I think this one really has some legs. According to Atomic Habits, one of the best ways of getting rid of a habit that you don’t want- is by creating a new habit that replaces it. The problem with being fucking addicted to your phone is what could possible eat up 8 hour of my day? Fuck it- lets workshop it.

Build - A - Bitch

Things I could do to replace the SEVEN HOURS of average screen time. Fucking EW.

2 hour walk

30 minute meditation

1 hour making dinner

1 hour writing letter

1 hour writing blogs

30 minute dancing

30 minute stretching

2 hours reading

Alright, that really doesn’t seem too unreasonable now that we write it down.

Accountability

This is where the blog comes in! Need to figure out how to really keep me accountable. Is it weekly screen check updates? Monthly? Something to keep me in check, and while social media and the internet have a lot of drawbacks, I truly think it is a gift and a tool, and I strive to get to a point where I can leverage the interwebs and get it under control.

Stay tuned for tips and tricks, struggles and success’ as I am painfully honest with myself and strategies to get my brain back from the tech giants. Is what their doing ethical? No. Is my brain anyones responsibility other than my own? Also no.

Godspeed friends.