Introduction
Cell phones have become very omnipresent in our world today, and this does come with big benefits, such as the ability to quickly find a way from point A to point B with navigation apps. But it also incurs some problems, such as the invasion of privacy, and a lack of downtime for people to rest and repair.
When I scroll on social media in the morning, I find that I often come out of it feeling less good then I started, an experience that I feel many could relate to. Furthermore, when I manage to still feel good by the end, I have usually made some stupid post that nobody will like and possibly made someone mad. The energy I spent there could have been much better spent on other things.
Although cell phones can be useful when appropriate, I have found myself to sometimes be more dependant on them then I would like. Therefore in this article I have compiled an overview of "tricks" that I have tried to become less dependant.
Goal
It is also worth considering what the actual goal is of getting off your phone. For me, I want to know more, but not in the shallow, I-know-all-the-headlines sort of way that phones design tends to promote. Instead, I want to understand more. Therefore, my time would be much better spent contemplating the wealth of knowledge I get without even touching my phone, rather than acquiring even more clutter. Social media can also make me feel bad sometimes, because it generally is a harbourer of misunderstanding and misbehavior. Therefore, getting off of both social media, and my phone in general, would probably benefit me.
Working Tricks
The trick that inspired me to write this article is very simple and easy, and for me helps quite a lot for it's size: removing all of the apps from your home screen. The reason that this works for me is that it makes finding apps harder. Rather than click on an icon in a list I have ordered myself for convenience, I must instead look for the app icon in an alphabetized list, or remember the name of the app, and search for it in the menu.
Because remembering the app name is surprisingly hard for my brain, and I am not visually oriented enough to easily spot the icon, it makes me think twice before pulling out an app I don't use regularly. This has been very helpful in giving my brain some downtime to think deeply. I used to often find myself sitting in a meeting room waiting for people to arrive, while fooling around with a random app on my phone to engage myself in something. That 4 seconds of searching for the app gives me just enough time to realize that I will be tired later if I spend every 10 minute break doing this, and stop to rest and process instead.
Although I have not taken this farther, I could if I wanted to, by putting apps that I want to encourage use of on the home screen. This way I can offer myself both a small positive and negative reinforcement.
Another idea I use is to put my phone on Do Not Disturb almost all the time. This way I cannot be interrupted, and I have over time, stopped thinking about my phone quite as much. This also works quite well, as it forces your brain to contemplate the now. It's like a mindfulness trick.
Its worth noting that neither of these tricks may work for you. Maybe you need to be in contact with your boss at work, and so notifications must be on for the purpose of disrupting your thinking. Maybe your brain is better than mine at finding apps in a nonsensical list, and so removing apps from you home screen isn't a hindrance. That's fine. If this article does not help you, don't read it.
Garbage (For Me)
I have tried before to turn the screen on my phone to greyscale. The idea is that this way the screen is less stimulating, and so I will be less likely to loose track of time and stay on my phone too long. This works well, but the last couple of times that I tried it, it in fact worked too well, by making me angry that my phone wasn't giving me the normal feeling. I then set it back to color.
Now that I am writing this article, I am going to try setting my phone to greyscale again. I like the idea, and it clearly works, so maybe if I do it again now that I am older and wiser (I hope), I will be better equipped to handle the change.
Screen time limits provide a similar problem. They work too well, such that I end up disabling them, because I get frustrated. In the case of screen time limits though, it's even worse, because I feel I can't choose to be on my phone if I wanted to. I like autonomy, so even if this worked well, it probably wouldn't work for me.
Conclusion
I wish that our cooperate overlords would not force The Holy Cellular Telephone down upon us. I wish that I didn't have to work so hard to keep tech I don't like out of my life. But while I do, here are some tips for how I approach the problem.