Earlier this month the Japanese emperor stepped down and abdicated, beginning a new era in the Japanese calendar (Reiwa) and giving everyone in Japan a ten-day Golden Week vacation. So that was awesome.
I spent four of those vacation days working at home, one of those days relaxing, and five of those days traveling, first over the Tateyama Alpine Route through the Northern Japanese Alps, then to visit friends in Yamanashi, and finally a stopover in Tokyo to visit another friend and enjoy some sweet Japanese Taco Bell (which was of far higher quality than its American counterpart).
It was a super-fun trip that also involved a LOT of waiting, first in the massive lines for cable cars up the mountain, then on the local trains, then waiting for friends. I’d downloaded a week’s worth of podcasts and packed my e-reader in preparation, but more often than not I found myself reaching for my phone to mindlessly scroll through social media, which I realized I’m fucking sick of doing.
Down Time Spent on My Phone Usually Isn’t Productive, Fulfilling, or Restful
When I’m on a fifteen-minute train ride and reach for my phone, sometimes I’m doing it because I need to reply to a message, check a train schedule, make a social media post, or accomplish some other very specific task with a defined goal.
The rest of the time, though I’m really just looking for something to fill the time, and rarely is that time more enjoyable than reading the book I literally have right next to me.
My worst culprit for sure has been hopping between social media apps—I’ll scroll through Twitter, then realize I haven’t checked Instagram, which then leads to Facebook and inevitably back to email and Google newsfeed (but not necessarily in that order). It’s hard to explain what I’m looking for, really, when I do this—perhaps some important piece of news or some super-cool post by a creative person I follow, or maybe I’m just afraid of of missing out on some critical piece of news or Facebook announcement that’ll radically rock my world. Because this goal feels so vaguely defined, though, I find myself continuously scrolling further and further down to find it…which I rarely do.
I’ve read that social media feeds have the same effect on our brains that slot machines do in that when we win on a slot machine our brain experiences a pleasurable sensation. Because our brains like pleasurable sensations, it makes us want to try the slot machine again…which is also why we keep scrolling through social media chasing the memory of that one really cool thing we found that one time, even if we can’t remember what it is right now.
Sometimes I find super-cool stuff on social media, but usually I don’t—more often I find a lot of mediocre stuff, or find some kind-of cool stuff whose payout isn’t nearly in proportion to the amount of time I spent looking for it, which leaves me feeling disappointed at having used up a bunch of time.
Worse than that, however, is that I often find myself pulling out my phone when I’m tired (say, after dinner, after a long bike ride, or after an exhausting social event) and want to relax for a bit. The problem is that scrolling through my phone—which keeps my brain racing and my eyes hyperfocused on the screen—isn’t the same as actual, for-serious relaxing, and after a smartphone social media session I usually find myself more tired than before.
I don’t want to stay mired in this habit of pulling out my phone anymore—instead, I want to spend my time doing more fulfilling, involved activities like reading books, checking out actual articles, or even just taking time to think without distractions. These things are important, and they’re easy to lose sight of when you’re always jumping on your phone.
My Phone-Related Time-Wasting Steals My Time in Short, Easy-to-Miss Bursts
I first started limiting my phone use two years ago when I realized I was excessively checking my email whenever I had a free moment in hope of getting some important message or job offer. Though I did a pretty good job at limiting my email checking to certain times of the day, my social media checking (which can also include email) is even harder to pinpoint because it’s less consistent, and involves a lot of different apps rather than just one, thus creating the illusion that I’m doing a lot of different things (Twitter, Instagram, reading news, etc.) rather than just one (wasting time on my phone).
Worse yet, when I caught myself spending up to a full hour scrolling through news and political tweets after work the problem was a lot easier to recognize because I was losing a freakin’ HOUR of my time at once, and this felt like a big deal.
With smaller stints of five to ten minutes, though, it’s a lot easier to miss that the time’s been wasted, especially if I’m pulling out the phone inconsistently (after dinner some days, after work on other days, in the morning on Saturdays, etc.) and can’t notice a pattern of time-wasting.
So Now That You’ve Pinpointed the Problem, What Are You Going to Do About It?
A lot of people respond to too much phone use by straight-up quitting social media or getting rid of their phones entirely. In my case this doesn’t feel necessary or productive for a few reasons:
- I probably won’t be able to stick to that
- I use Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram to publicize this blog (You ARE following me, aren’t you???)
- I want to, you know, keep up with stuff, and stay involved with a world that relays actual information and cool stuff over social media.
With this in mind I’m going to set a clear limit on my social media-related phone use, similar to the limit I set during my anti-email checking challenge. Starting today, I’m only going to check social media once per day.
I like this goal for a few reasons, namely because it’s easy to remember and basically syncs with what I was doing until I started getting antsy during my Golden Week vacation. By defining my goal more clearly I’m hoping to avoid the more excessive checks that have been dogging me on weekends or when I’m out and about with time to kill.
There’s also the trickier matter of how long I actually want my daily checks to be, since they could take up a lot of my time if I’m not careful. Since some days I have more time than others and my urge to go online tends to vary, I plan on starting each phone session with a clear, pre-set limit to how much time I’ll spend staring at the screen.
Let me say that again: I’m going to start each phone session with a clear, pre-set limit of how much time I’ll be spending on social media.
Some days this amount might be as short as one minute; other days when I have more time or inclination I might push it to a half hour—this is the part I want to work out day-by-day based on how much I actually want to be using social media, rather than being compelled into using it through habit.
As with most of my self-improvement goals, I want to figure out this new step in a way that works for me and builds genuine habits, rather than choosing an arbitrary number and sticking to it. Because if I can keep the process flexible and dynamic, I’ll have a higher chance of really improving.
That’s the plan for now, and as always, I’ll keep you posted ;-)
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