How I Cured my Digital Addiction
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My name is Lisa and I’m addicted to my smart phone. It wasn’t always this way. I got my first personal smartphone in 2013; that’s the year when it just tipped over to a majority (53%) of Americans owning a smartphone but it wasn’t as ubiquitous as it is now (91%). I had a work Blackberry (ahh remember those?) and a dumb phone. But it soon became apparent that I wanted to use apps and message my friends without being monitored by my office. So I got an iPhone 5. And at first, I hated having a phone because I hated being reachable. But, that quickly changed. The people who make these smart phones are ….smart! They know how to lure you in.
My Quick Descent into Social Media Addiction
I wasn’t a big social media person. I was in college when Facebook was introduced. But I distinctly remember trying Facebook once and I easily wasted an hour searching information about my classmates. And I felt sick about the emotions it brought up and how easy it was to get sucked in. Ever since then, I’ve been very wary of Facebook. That was 20 years ago, and I imagine I’ve saved at least a month of my life by never downloading the app and just despising the whole thing.
But the social media I did love was Instagram. At first, I thought it was pretty virtuous. Rather than using the app to compare myself to impossibly perfect bodies.
Recently, I downloaded an app that tracks my driving for my auto insurance (terrible idea for privacy but it’s too late). After my first few rides I thought, oh I have to stop texting while driving because my insurance now knows I text while driving. But also, why am I texting while driving? What’s so important that I’m risking my life and everyone else’s life over?
How Social Media was Warping My Mind
I realized my social media usage was changing my mind in ways that I found upsetting.
For instance, I followed instagram accounts with beautiful pictures of exotic locales. I thought seeing these images would lift my mood and inspire awe. Instead, I realized that, after professional photographs of peak autumn leaf colors with filters and aftereffects, it made me disappointed when I saw real leaves. I was afraid that reality would never live up to the fantasy, and that it would leave me constantly disappointed.
After watching commercials showing actors having fun, I feared that watching people have fun would always seem more desirable than actual living. I could easily convince myself to watch people rather than do the things. Reading the news meant that other people have set the agenda for my conversation. Texting is easier than talking face to face.
I was trading convenience and ease with the best parts of life. These thoughts scared me straight.
What Finally Got Me to Change My Digital Detox Efforts
We all know we are too addicted to our phones. We hear that we are spending days and months and eventually years of our lives distracted. But until I thought about how social media was changing me even when I was NOT using it, that’s when I started to get afraid.
I figured the time, it just slips by. I know that sounds stupid but everyone wastes time. It’s easy. Even thinking about the time, it’s hard to conceptualize, so the waste of time didn’t bother me as much as I thought it would.
But it really scared me how social media was changing my mind even when I wasn’t consuming it. I was so immersed in it though and we are all so immersed in this culture that it’s easy to see that I’m not the worst offender. There were definitely people who couldn’t be off their phones for even enough time to eat a meal. But just because I wasn’t the worst was hardly a reason to celebrate. You might not be the most addicted, but you’re still an addict.
Other Ways My Phone Was Messing with My Mind
I read this super interesting answer on Quora recently (I can’t find it) but it was something like what women don’t understand about women. And the answer said that women don’t understand (as a generalization) that men don’t multitask. When a woman tries to have a conversation during a movie, or while he’s working, or while he’s doing anything, a man will likely stop what he’s doing so that he can engage in the conversation. And that’s annoying to women because she wants him to multitask – she doesn’t want to seem intrusive.
I know this is a generalization, but I think it helped me understand some of the men in my life. I like to multitask by having a conversation with my boyfriend while I’m working on my laptop but I’ve noticed that I don’t really remember what our conversations were about. And I don’t want to go through my life thinking I’m paying attention but really just being distracted.
What Digital Addiction Has to Do with Finances
At first, this just seems like a wellness post. But our digital addictions weren’t created just because people wanted to ruin our lives. People created addictive apps to sell us products. The sadder we are, the lonelier we are, the more dissatisfied we are, the more we try to spend our ways out of this hell. But if we stopped this cycle – if we connected with our lives, if we stopped exposing ourselves to aspirational unattainable goals, we might be happier. If we’re happy, we wouldn’t look inside our social media apps to find happiness.
There’s something I read in Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, which is that for so much of life, we’re tryin to distract ourselves from the present. This seems to make sense, for instance, when I’m giving blood and I don’t want to panic and flinch as the giant needle inches nearer to my arm. But we often numb ourselves from boredom, from unpleasant experiences, sometimes even pleasant experiences. It’s pretty often now that we watch TV while working on our computers or texting on our phones. Our brains need so much stimulation now. But the example in Four Thousand Weeks, showed a monk who was taking ice baths. At first he tried to distract his mind from the experience, but it actually felt better for him to fully experience the icy pain. It was easier. The pain was harder at first, but that pain was fleeting and it got easier as time went on, as opposed to the constant strain of distracting oneself. Every now and then I think about how to be more present in every moment and why I feel the desire to distract myself in these instances.
Conclusion – How I Cured My Digital Addiction
Based on what I found out, I deleted all social media apps off my phone. I turned off notifications for my messages. When not in use, my phone sleeps in a sleeping bag so that I’m not always looking at it.
I’m not perfect at all. I use my phone often. But I’m leaning more toward balance. But it reminds me of the saying, “how you spend your days is how you spend your life.” You are what you do, you are what you eat, you are what you think. To put it better:
“We experience only what we pay attention to. We remember only what we pay attention to. When we decide what to pay attention to in the moment, we are making a broader decision about how we want to spend our lives.”
― How to Break Up with Your Phone: The 30-Day Plan to Take Back Your Life
It really makes you think about your life staring at your screen. Hopefully we can retake our minds.
