There were some interesting posts recently about social media and quitting social media. This is often linked to phone use, and it's an interesting reminder to me that there is a whole giant world of apps and social media that have small to large effects on people's reality, and which have zero effect on my own reality.
By not being on any social media I have decoupled my phone use with social media app use.
And yet, I still feel like I use my phone too much. I know I do, because I find myself grabbing it at quiet moments to look at *something*
Or when babies are being particularly needy and climbing on me and I just need to pass 20 minutes to the next nap or snack or activity or whatever.
Also, I spend an average of 1hr 20 minutes on my phone a day. That's like... 9 hours a week? That's a lot of time.
Some of it, or most of it, isn't otherwise useful time. but what do I *do* for those hours?
A bunch of nothing:
Anything on Safari is me wasting time. And then the fact that it could pick out BBC from my safari hits was not good. Nothing on BBC is good. Why do I use my phone as a tiny portal to bring the world's horrors into my mind at any moment? Why do I need to know what person killed what other person, what kid got a disease that's very sad, what country is launching what attacks on what other country... all while standing in my own comfy home?
Does it make me any more informed to spend random midday minutes consuming other people's horrors via my phone?
No, it does not. It doesn't make me feel good either. It doesn't help the world.
So, I took the un-drastic action of blocking news websites from my phone. FYI, this can be done in the parental controls section, under limiting adult websites. Here is a list of my vices:
And now, I don't use my phone for news. It's been a week. I still use my phone too much. But at least I don't use it for news?
Also, messages. I apparently spend 2 hours a week messaging people on my phone. This seems... crazy. I don't have long form text correspondences. I very intentionally only have text conversations that result in something in person. I use texting for arranging my social life only. I never do a "hey, how's it going" text unless it's followed with "let's hang out on x date" or "are you free on x weekend" or "let's catch up soon, free for a call this evening?". I'm amazed that even without using texting as a way of "staying in touch" I'm able to spend 2+ hours a week on it.
[FYI - this was a big lesson from when Andy and I both switched to dumb phones. I realized I was using my phone for friendship maintenance, group chats, and other "girl" things. Andy was only using his phone to organizing things. I've very intentionally tried to ensure my text use supports things to do, rather than things to say. My friends will know I'm there for them when I see them. I don't feel my friendships have suffered by me not engaging in long form text correspondence]
I don't have a great answer. I think my ideal is less than an hour a day. But that means I don't default to phone jiggery when I have down time, and that I'm intentionally off the phone, rather than making the phone super boring. Or maybe my life is just sometimes more boring than a phone right now.
If it means anything, you are the lowest level of use of anyone I’ve seen posted recently! So good job there! Such an interesting thought of things to do vs things to say. I’ve never thought of that perspective. My Mom is hard of hearing and especially in the era between her being able to hear well on the phone and the advent of video calling, we write very long emails to each other (we’ve lived 1000+ since I left for college). We do FaceTime once or twice a month but even that sometimes is hard for her, so we still write long emails and supplement them with texts throughout our days. Little updates on the kids or something that happens that I know she’ll enjoy. This has spilled over to others in my life (all of my family and many of my friends live far away) and we are always chatting here and there. Real time communication is tricky, especially with time zones and life situations. Over the pandemic ( I worked from home, aka privacy) my sisters and I did a lot of video messages and those were great. I’d like to have more real time communication in my life with people far away but on one hand it’s crazy to think about adding additional time for phone calls/FaceTime but if they lived in my city, I’d have no problem setting up a meal or coffee. Definitely food for thought and I thank you for your perspective! Going to try to add more synchronous communication to my life!
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure how long you've been reading here but I spend 2 years without a smartphone from 2021-2023 which was a really interesting experience, and it's made me way more interested in how I and other people use their phones daily! The texting/communicating thing is so interesting because when I first stopped using a smart phone I started writing long emails to people (I probably seemed like a crazy person!) but I think it's in a similar way that you wrote to your mom - I find writing a really nice way to communicate. I realized I don't get that same hit of happy from a quick text, or really any asynchronous communication, as I do from a live conversation.
Deleteyour thought is so interesting "’I'd like to have more real time communication in my life with people far away but on one hand it’s crazy to think about adding additional time for phone calls/FaceTime but if they lived in my city, I’d have no problem setting up a meal or coffee. ". I wonder why that is? I hope you are able to set up some synchronous communication soon!
@kristin, in case of interest for your Mom, Skype offers captions on its video calls.
DeleteThis explains why you haven't answered my last 5 texts. Lol!! (Truly, I am amused and not impatient, I promise.) - Kat
ReplyDeleteApparently my US phone has been out of batteries for... a while. Oops!
DeleteIsn't it interesting when we actually add up the time we spend!? I actually don't have my phone on me very much. Like right now, it is still in the bedroom and I probably won't check it until later. BUT I am at the computer now, and so that is also screen time and probably where I would look at news if I were to do that. However, that is not really my vice. Just guessing, I would probably use Google, Goodreads, Libby, and my camera the most of all of the things/apps on my phone. Now I want to go and check! However, I am like you, I only really text people when I am setting something up or when there is an end to the means. I am not really a "chatty" texter (or phone person)!
ReplyDeleteI feel like somehow internet time wasting on computer is better than the phone version, at least for me, because I'm more aware of how I'm doing it. I am sitting on the sofa on my comptuer = comptuer time. But grabbing my phone is not really internet time or resting time or weeing time so that's why I would prefer to scroll on the computer vs. phone.
DeleteI am sorry our text correspondence fizzled lol, but we will definitely be in touch when you come visit :-D
I would be super interested in your screen time also! And in anyones screen time really...
My "screen time" for yesterday was: 3:43 and the top few were as follows. 2:23 maps (I drove to my cousin's for Thanksgiving), 37 min Rummikub, 12 min Libby (which is weird, because I listened to my audiobook for a couple of hours).
DeleteFor Wednesday, it was a total of 1 hr 17 mins and my top two were Rummikub (44 mins) and Chrome (8 mins), and for Tuesday it was a total of 1 hr 25 mins and the top two were Rummikub (26 mins) and Pronunciator (language learning app). I guess the moral of this story is that I mostly use my phone for games!
Wellll, I feel like I'm going to disagree a little bit with you (respectfully, and I hope you don't mind!). I guess I don't agree with the notion that I hear sometimes that says that all social media "connections" are not as valuable, or that texting is not the same as real interactions, etc. I mean, yes, I get the idea behind it. But I just don't fully agree that those connections aren't also valid in their own way. In reality, life is very busy, people live far apart, and face to face visits or even phone calls just are not always possible. I feel that "something is better than nothing", and those electronic social interactions still count for something.
ReplyDeleteA few examples: My sister lives in Ireland, I'm in the U.S. We text quite often as our primary way of staying in touch. She has 3 young kids, we're in different time zones, etc. She will occasionally send a really long text with a bunch of 'updates". More often, we shoot each other quick messages, funny comments, etc. The odds of us consistently finding time to sit down and face to face Skype is just not good. I'd prefer we stay in touch this way, and I'd argue I get MORE out of it vs infrequent but longer phone calls.
Another example- I have an almost exclusively online friendship with SHU. We text multiple times a day! Those text correspondences ARE the basis of our friendship, given she's in Florida and I'm in WI. There's just no way we're going to sit down and talk on the phone all the time, lol! But I wouldn't want to sacrifice this really awesome friendship just in the name of being on my phone less.
And final example, I just went to my aunt's funeral on Monday. There, I saw a bunch of my cousins (who I rarely see anymore due to distance/stage of life), but I am friends with on Facebook. I know people will say "eh, all those random updates aren't useful- if you really wanted a relationship w/ the person, you'd reach out and make real connections". But I think there's room for a middle ground! In this case, it's not that I don't care about my cousins... we just aren't THAT close, either, to get together all the time. But I do love being able to see their kids, and know her little guy is in karate classes, and that they went to the Dominican Republic, etc. It helps me stay at least connected, and now when we saw each other, we could easily pick right up where we left off, vs. having this YEARS long gap/black hole where I might not even know how they were doing, which would just distance me further. Even if occasionally "liking" or commenting on each others' pics is not a substitute for a "real" relationship, I still feel like it's better than the alternative! Which would probably be zero contact, honestly, and kind of sad.
Anyway, just my 2 cents! I feel like there's room to want space away from constant phone use, without messages/social media/ etc being all bad, either.
Hi Kae! Thanks for the super thoughtful reply. I have to admit that if you read my post on RSS it was a bit more, umm, harsh(?) than I intended and I toned it down a bit but that doesn't feed through into RSS feeds I think, so you may have seen the tired outpouring of my brain that I probably should have proofread first.
DeleteI think your points are all totally valid, and I can see the importance of "something is better than nothing" playing out in all three scenarios. I think that people may have different social cups to fill... and for me I feel like my social cups are super full even without facebook and texting etc. But that I wasn't really "aware" of how full they were without it until I left phone/app based friendships. And I wasn't aware of how different those relationships are as well until I took a break from the in person ones (during covid) and then a break from the internet ones (during 2021 analogue phone) and I went wholly back to in person and didn't miss phone. BUT that could definitely just be me and the stage of life I'm in! I might want those other connections if I had more time for texting. It's super cool that you're in a stage of live/parenting where you have time and effort to prioritize making and maintain friends via text & facebook. My lack of messaging/text friends may be more of a life stage thing than a "phone" thing.
I definitely appreciate the comment and it's much to think about. Sorry if my initial post came across more dismissive than I intended (or even if this post did, I'm honestly very tired lol)
I really love how intentional you are with your phone use and how you're constantly reevaluating your use. I think that's a very healthy approach.
ReplyDeleteI will say that I agree with Kae on some things. Most of my family and friends are not local, even though I FaceTime with my family 3-4x per week, that would also count as phone use, I guess. And I do love that I can just send my sister or my mom a quick message just to check-in.
I prefer long-form email messages with friends, but a lot of my oversea friends have moved on to solely using Whatsapp, so I get longer messages or voice messages there (I hate voice message, just FYI LOL). I don't want to give up those friendships just because social media is their preferred way of communicating, you know?
But I do agree that we can all be a bit more mindful how much time we spend on our phones and if it's "valuable" time.