Lately I’ve noticed that I feel more and more addicted to my phone every day. I deleted the Facebook app a long time ago because it felt like a time suck and that helped me detach from my phone for a while. But now, I’ll find myself scrolling through Instagram for far too long, closing out of it and almost compulsively, unconsciously opening it again a few minutes later without even realizing what I’ve done.
Sometimes ADD can come with an addictive personality, but I think many of us struggle with an uncontrollable fixation on our apps.
But the last time I updated my phone, I found a new screen time function that measured how much time I spent on my phone per day. And the results were frightening.
It reports that in the last seven days, I’ve spent an average of 2 hours and 40 minutes on my phone per day. In the moment, I never really feel like I could have spent that much time texting, scrolling through Instagram or checking the news. But it seriously adds up. And the even scarier figure is that over the past week I have spent a cumulative 18 hours and 42 minutes on my phone. Just writing that horrifies me when I think of all the actually constructive things I could be doing with 18 whole hours.
So I have a few goals for this next week to cut down my phone time and I would love it if you would join me!
- Turn my phone off or put it far away from my bed before I go to sleep.
- Limit my Instagram use to 20 minutes a day (the screen time functions lets you set limits for each app!)
- Limit my time on news apps to 15 minutes a day. It all depresses me anyway.
- Try to only open my phone when I have received a message, not just to compulsively swipe around.
- Lastly, when I feel the need to scroll through my phone for no reason, I will try to fill that time with better things like going for a walk, writing a song, cooking or journaling.
How do you detach from your phone? Let me know in the comments!
Sara, Simply. 