I remember being in middle school getting my first phone, a red flip phone that only had my parents' phone number on it and the game snake. I was bubbling with excitement about it, ready to show my friends, but they recently just got the new iPhone. They were on it 24/7 talking to strangers or looking up things on the internet no child should ever see and showing it to me and my friend group. It was a time where I felt parents weren’t completely aware of the power of the internet and looking back I wish I could have protected myself from most of that. As I am much older now and being exposed to whatever pops up on my feed doesn’t faze me as much, that shouldn’t be an excuse for still subjecting myself to being exposed to the wild west of the internet. I desperately want to get off my phone, but I realized I can’t even kick the habit of bringing my phone from room to room with me. It feels almost pathetic to say “yes, I am addicted to my phone,” but no matter if it is an “addiction” or a “habit”, I. Need. To. Get. Off. My. Phone. A lot of what I see on the internet on how other people have helped their habits has all seemed shallow and not something that feels authentic. There are going to be errors, and it’s not going to be all easy, and I feel like especially with phone use, people should be more open about how hard it can be. At least in my neck of the woods, social media has built up my communities, I have friends all on there and I don’t want to lose that completely; social media is also a part of my actual 8-5 job as well as my side gigs of selling art. Moral of the story, I can’t fully get rid of social media and my phone, but there are ways I can try to lessen my screen time. It is an awful feeling to go from working all day by being on a screen and then my brain going home and watching more screens as a way to unwind. The whole process of less screen time doesn’t just mean less exposure to social media, it also means engaging in healthier and more fulfilling ways of living. Throughout this journey of beginning the process of getting off my phone in my free time, I am attempting three different ways of doing it: the iphone’s version of app blocking, OneSec, and AppBlock.
April 4 – April 11: iPhone Screen Time Saver To start off this experiment, I wanted to test out first what the iPhone itself had to offer for controlling screen time. If you go into the settings, then into the screen time section, and then hit app limits, there is a way to choose how to limit time with your apps. My problem area is Instagram, so I am just starting off with limiting that app.