Phone Detox
Written by Joshua Vogel
Being on your phone for 2 hours every day will equate to about 5 years of your life by age 70. That's not super crazy right? You know, we spend time watching movies, playing games, hanging out with friends. What's the difference?
Well, not every kid is on their phone for only 2 hours and if you think you're not, go to your phone settings and check for yourself. You may be pushing 3, 4, 5 maybe 6-7 hours every day. Being on your phone everyday for 4 hours a day is 10 years of your life by age 70, and every extra hour you spend is an additional two years! Is this really what we want to do with our time?
The takeaway is that you will spend those 3-12 years and have absolutely nothing to show for it. That's a decade of memories that could have been; that's 10 years of learning a new skill; that's 10 years focusing on yourself and your health, all down the drain. I could forget about all of this math, I could forget about all of the wasted time if I and so many people around me were not so bound to our phones. Our phones have all of us in their thrall, and we don't even notice what it's taking from us.
This is not just coming from me. Harmony Healthcare did a study to see the average screen time usage among various generations, and gen z had the highest average of about 6 and a half hours a day. The parts of our phone that kept us on them the most were social media apps like Tik Tok, Instagram, Snapchat, Youtube, and so on. The kids involved in the study also reported experiencing tired, unfulfilled days and a general sense of anxiety. Because I saw some parallels between the study and my own life, I decided to take matters into my own hands.
I sometimes can't go one second on my phone without opening TikTok or Instagram. Most of the time, I don't even want to be on it; I'm just scrolling to scroll. Sure, it passes time, but it's just the most mindless thing one can do to pass time. I feel the time in my day flying right out of my hands. It's like I blinked and a whole hour just went by with absolutely nothing to show for it. It affects my school day and homework, it affects my mood, and it affects my practice.
There's some part of me that thinks that this problem is definitely not solely present in me. I see others sometimes with their necks strained, hanging soulless like zombies. Is that really what I look like?!? Why don't we take more time instead to talk to each other or interact? Why is it that a phone, a meaningless collection of rock and glass, has taken such a primary role in our adolescent experience?
If there was one thing that was holding me back, keeping me from getting farther in my academics and arts than I already have, it was my phone. So I have decided to go on a phone detox for the time it takes to prepare the next issue of the newspaper.
The plan to go about this is to delete all social media apps. I have heard of other students getting rid of TikTok only to get it again a few weeks later. There's a good chance I might fall back as well, but if I have the goal of making it to the publication of the next issue of the paper, I can see myself going longer without the need for social media. I am also going to document a few days of my phone detox experience below, noting things like my mood, my social interactions, my energy, my day, and my desire to go back to social media.
My practice has suffered, my schooling has suffered, my self-esteem has suffered, and I can never be successful if I never put down my phone. I think Gandhi said that once.
See a bit of my experience below.
THURSDAY, WEEK ONE
9:45 am
I really want to get on my phone. I have just uninstalled TikTok and Instagram, as those have been the most significant contributors to my phone addiction. If some other app takes priority, I'll uninstall those ones as well, but as of right now, it's just TikTok and Instagram. I really only use them to connect with friends and send them funny reels, but the algorithms are just so captivating. The “oh I’ll just watch the funny video my friends sent me” turns into the “ An hour passed? Eeeeeh, just one more… one more couldn't hurt… one more.” It's a real shame, and I feel dumb to admit how it just grabs my attention. And because the short form videos are so quick, you ask yourself, “what's another ten seconds?” but you do that three hundred and sixty times and now it's night time… I didn't get much sleep, I blamed that one on my phone as well, so I feel pretty drained and zombie-like already. I feel like the world outside of my phone is almost painful to experience. It's not a visceral pain; it's just uncomfortable. For example, looking at my phone will make it all better. I'm sure I sound like Gollum from Lord of the Rings right now, but that's kinda what it's like. I have to go practice after this, and I usually waste about 30 minutes on my phone, unfocused on what I am meant to be doing. It's gonna be nice, I hope, to not have anything take me away from my instrument.
11:37 am
I have had a few times when I close an app and, instinctively, my thumb would move to the now-empty slot where TikTok used to be. I was shocked. I clicked an empty slot, and not a single conscious thought passed through my head to make that decision. I was ashamed of myself. I had just finished texting my roommate about the temperature. I was supposed to go back to practicing right after, but I unconsciously went to TikTok. Good thing I deleted it this morning or I would have most definitely gotten sucked in.
MONDAY, WEEK ONE
8:43 am
At around the five-day mark, I feel less of a pull to my phone, but the only thing I can think of to pass the time is to scroll. It's like my brain is trying to do everything in its power to keep me from thinking on my own. I have been doing really well, concerning my mood. I feel more energized by the end of the day, like I can take on anything. I often feel groggy and that my evening practice will be a waste of time, but recently I have been feeling like I can take on those last few hours of the day with a substantial amount of energy. It has been very surprising, and I initially thought it was the good sleep I have been getting recently, but I get good sleep all the time, and it feels like only now that I'm off my phone, that I have this focus. There has also been a stark difference in how I take in nature. I loved nature before this, but I have never wanted to be outside more than now that I'm off my phone. This Saturday I went on a walk with the ecology club. I barely said all that much, but I didn't need to. I was taking in the gorgeous atmosphere around me and really appreciated all of the great things around me. The ecology club pointed out some frogs and certain bird species, and one of the teachers talked to me about the smaller ecosystems we often don't see. It was beautiful, and I think if I had been on my phone, doom scrolling in my room, I would have really missed out. My self-esteem is about the same; however, I've been comfortable in my own skin for a while now and have been working out to keep myself healthy, but I know that seeing fewer supermodels and ripped dudes allows me to evaluate my body relative to myself instead of relative to them.
MONDAY, WEEK TWO
9:19 am
At the end of this “experiment” I can without a doubt say that getting off my phone is far harder than I thought. I've had days where I went a whole 24 hours without once opening my phone for a means of passing the time; then there were days where I spent half my day rotting on my phone while looking like a total moron. I will say that the benefits of being off my phone have really shined through. My days are longer and more fulfilling, I have a higher work ethic, and I can stick to a task longer than usual. My practice suffered a little bit last week, but when I did practice I had longer sessions and way more determination. I did find other ways of distracting myself. Like mobile games or youtube's longer form videos, but without that really addicting algorithm it was usually as simple as turning off my phone and continuing with my day. A few days ago I also had the revelation that I don't really use my phone for things other than to turn my brain off and talk to my friends. It opened a few opportunities like how when I would usually open my phone to scroll I then used it to check my email, or check my calendar. As sad as it might sound, I'm actually using my phone the way it was intended, as a tool to assist me through the day, not a mind-numbing time skip. I went on a 4-hour walk the other day with no music, no phone, just the outside air. I found some wooden stilts by the cabins, a fun spiraling digging tool (that I lost), and some VA projects. I did a lot of thinking which helped me process some emotions and memories. I sang to myself. I pretended like I was some forest giant. I threw some rocks and just had a good time. Looking back I was totally missing out.
It has been really really nice doing things other than scrolling, but being off my phone hasn't been without its drawbacks. I barely knew what was going on. My sense of current events was fed to me extremely slowly via anecdotes throughout the day. I often felt like I was behind on what I was supposed to know. The common internet joke, or funny video was a very pinnacle of how I connected with my friends. It was odd at first for them to try and reference a meme I had never seen, but it forced us to talk about other things that were just as funny or just as interesting. The crazy political news that everyone was talking about made me feel alienated from my peers; it made me feel dumb or incompetent for not knowing or not caring. The fear of missing out was one of the first real big negatives when I first started separating myself from my phone. People were making fun of me because I didn't get many of the jokes, and I barely knew what was happening outside of school. It felt strangely pleasant and worrisome at the same time. It was super nice to go around and only focus on the day around me. Having to worry about some natural disaster that happened on another continent was beyond me. I'd love to help but realistically the only thing I can do is worry or freak out about it. Being off my phone made me think about all the people who lived before us in previous decades. Older generations went their whole lives without feeling like they needed to numb their mind with TikTok or Instagram. They got their information through the newspaper which is significantly slower than the internet. In the past, kids our age probably didn't even read the newspaper; they probably just rode their bikes, or took walks, or talked to their family. As self-centered as it may seem, I didn't care about what was happening outside of my life, and people lived like that for thousands of years! Shouldn't that be the norm? It's normal for humans to want to help other humans, but it's not in our nature for humans to understand as much as we do. In 1825, I highly doubt that the people of Germany cared what the people of Canada were doing. Even if they read the paper, what is that random German guy gonna do? If I were him I would just keep living my life, doing what a dude from 1825 in Germany would do. Why does having my phone immediately make me obligated to have to understand the whole globe? Politics are important, global politics are important, global trade is important, and I'm not saying to drop every little bit of information. What I am saying is, looking at my phone at face value, it's taking my attention away from the world that is right in front of me. On the days that I wasn't on my phone at all, those were the days I felt like I had the most effect on the world around me. When I get older I will have a say on politics; when I have a job I will donate to charities; when I come of age I will sign petitions that change things for the better. But right now, in high school, at the ripe old age of 17, I think I will be just fine focusing on me, just for right now. And if that means having to sacrifice the funbox that makes all of my problems go away, I will.