My phone addiction is a full-time job

Digital Minimalism Diaries #3

Welcome back to the ✨ Digital Minimalism Diaries ✨ where I share my journey towards a more digitally minimalistic life. As a 20-something with a smartphone I’m on a mission to drastically reduce my screen time - join me on the path to a more meaningful, analogue existence. Become a paid subscriber to never miss a diary entry - I hope you enjoy today’s post!

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I'm somewhat ashamed to say that prior to starting to take control of my screen time last year, I often spent the equivalent hours of a full-time job on my phone. That's not including time spent on computers or other screens like TV. Am I the only one shocked by that? A workweek’s worth of hours each week on my phone! At my worst I was averaging 35-40 hours a week. Clearly something had to change.

Enter digital minimalism. You might of heard of it because of Cal Newport’s bestselling book, Digital Minimalism, but don’t be fooled into thinking that you can only embark on digital minimalism if you’ve read the book. I haven’t. I’m figuring things out as I go, although I do have the intention of reading the book one day.

Going back to last year, I felt like I was constantly on my phone. In Glennon Doyle’s book Untamed she describes the changes in her son when he got a phone and the conversation she had with him about the negative consequences of it. His reply was: “It’s like a job I don’t want or get paid for or anything.”

Last year, I felt the exact same way. I felt like all my time was sucked into this tiny little machine; it was in control of me instead of me being in control of it. I’d try to cut down my screen time only to see it creep up again. One time I even tracked my screen time for 12 weeks only to end up in pretty much the same place as where I started.

Should we all go back to this?

It doesn’t matter if you’re neurodivergent or not, tech companies know how to hook you onto screens through dopamine rewards. In case you didn’t know, both smartphones and social media work a lot like slot machines in that they keep you guessing: sometimes they give you notifications and sometimes they don’t, sometimes you have a ‘prize’ and sometimes you don’t. You check your lock screen or refresh your feed constantly there’s always more to see - and that’s exactly how they’ve designed it, smartphone companies and social media platforms alike.

In future posts I want to delve deeper into sharing what has worked for me in terms of drastically reducing my screen time, but for now let’s take a step back in time to last year.