Screen Time Bomb
But there are two things I’ve done recently that changed my life, and maybe they’d work for you, too...
The first is that I don’t sleep next to my phone anymore. This has three benefits:
1. It keeps me from pettin’ screen into the wee hours.
2. If I wake up in the middle of the night and look at the time, I don’t see whatever messages are coming in from colleagues in different time zones (which in the past could keep me from falling back asleep).
3. When I wake up, instead of reading the news and scrolling Instagram in bed, I just get up. Go figure. That small, efficient step then snowballs and helps me have a more focused, productive day.
The second was deleting the Instagram app on my phone. To be clear, I didn’t delete my Instagram. I can, and still do, see my account through a web browser. But this clunkier user experience keeps me from unconsciously tapping the app 50 times a day and mindlessly scrolling till I remember why I opened my phone in the first place.
This is less of a digital detox than it is a weaning. I don’t know how much less I’m actually on my phone, but when I am, it feels like it’s on purpose, and that’s gotta mean something.
taylor