I’ve got a problem. I admit it. I know I’m susceptible, probably more than most, to the call of social media, email, and apps. I read a report recently that said adults check their phones, on average, 80 or more times a day for a total of five hours of daily use. I don’t know if it’s because I have an addictive personality (I don’t do much else that’s technically ‘addictive’), but I have a problem with my smartphone. Let me explicate some of my symptoms and you can decide whether you, too, might be an addict.
I feel vulnerable without my phone. I worry that somebody might try to contact me and I’ll miss them. I reach compulsively for my pocket to make sure my phone is still there; when I’ve left my phone at home, this moment is always accompanied by a jolt of panic. My self-loathing is positively correlated to the number of hours I spend ‘using’ my phone (emphasis on the active ‘using’ because I feel most days as if my phone has instead been using me). I feel irritable if I don’t have my phone in moments of solitude and transition—on TRAX, walking to class, eating lunch, at the gym. I can’t explain it, but in these moments, I feel like I’m missing a limb. What’s more, I feel the uncontrollable desire to keep using when I’ve picked up my phone.
For example, here’s an actual play-by-play of an unconscious phone-use loop I catch myself in all the time: I saw a John Green book on my bookshelf I’d never read (An Abundance of Katherines). I checked Goodreads to see how many ratings the book had. I then compared it with The Fault in Our Stars, which had more. Then I checked John Green’s net worth, curious to see how much money an author of teen fiction might make. On the net worth website, I saw an add for the book The Martian. I went to IMDb to read trivia on the movie “The Martian.” I found out that the author published the book online via his blog. I checked out how many people had reviewed the book on Goodreads (over 200,000). I read some reviews of the book. After 20 minutes of this, I checked my email (for the 20th time that day). I finally threw my phone across the room in disgust and returned to the essay I was in the middle of writing.
This tendency toward falling down virtual rabbit holes was on my mind before fall break. I was worried that my need for constant entertainment and preoccupation would only fuel itself in the absence of school and work. I was looking down the barrel of a week-long binge of pointless hours of web-browsing, Netflix, and reckless app surfing. And though this might sound fine to some, it aroused in me a sense of abject terror and hopelessness.
So I decided to try an experiment: to stay away from my phone for an entire week. From Saturday to Saturday, I would also limit the use of my laptop, using it strictly for homework. I had no need to call home and no emails that required immediate attention.
Guess how I did? Well, the first few days I was wracked with boredom. I stayed strong, though. I didn’t touch my phone. I went outside and enjoyed some of the last warm days we had left. I read a book from start to finish. I actually drove myself to a movie theater (sans GoogleMaps), watched a movie and made it back home. I didn’t have a phone the entire time. Not even on me. I knew if I had my phone the temptation would be too strong to check email. Too strong to read trivia on the movie or see if the critical interpretation was similar to mine. I read The New York Times from cover to cover without an app telling me which stories were worth reading. But after the third or fourth day I started to feel itchy-fingered. I realized this was part of the psychological dependency I’d developed. The withdrawal symptoms were surprising. I felt languid, like I couldn’t focus on anything for very long. While doing homework I couldn’t retrieve information I thought I had stored and ready-to-go. I realized I depended a lot on my cellphone and the Internet to reinforce the knowledge I thought I carried with me.
I broke down. After the fourth day, I used my phone for little things. I watched YouTube. I checked my email. I was unsurprised to find that nothing I received was very important, though I usually check my email so many times a day you’d think I always had something pressing to reply to. By the end of the seventh day, I was more or less back to using my cellphone (and ‘using’ is not an arbitrary way to put this).
It’s not possible anymore for all of us to go without our cellphones all the time. I’m also not saying that real connections can’t be made via social media or that all interactions through the Internet are any less real than if we were to meet somebody in person. Language can transcend media (the plural, here, of ‘medium’), and relationships attach to language. Sure, breaking from reality can be a tool for gaining new perspective. Yet I think there’s a limit we reach when using our cellphones becomes too erroneous, too harmful to real life knowledge and interaction. I am not among the first people to think this. There are an endless number of research studies that purport to show the devastating effects of smartphone dependency.
And while you might think to yourself, “I’m not as whacked as this guy, checking Goodreads and IMDB and email constantly,” I might point out that businesses like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram thrive and survive on our online, on-smartphone presence. Snapchat and Twitter take the human attention span and compresses it to roughly the size of a dime. And if you don’t use Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or Snapchat … bless you.
I was pretty disappointed in myself after my week was up. In my mind, I had mostly failed. Instead of wallowing, however, I took steps to remediate my guilt and self-loathing and came up with ways to limit myself while also abiding by the omnipresent need to have and use smartphones. Here’s the list I developed.
1. When using a cellphone for anything other than a phone call, stand up. The act of standing dramatically cuts down the amount of time you’ll want to be on your phone.
2. Never use a smartphone or the Internet while laying down.
3. Never use a phone or laptop after 10 p.m., and never right before falling asleep. The light from a screen can seriously disrupt the natural rhythms of the human sleep cycle, causing poor sleep habits. Do what you need to do on either of these devices before nighttime.
4. Never use a phone first thing in the morning. Allow your body to wake up naturally before you feed it with technology. Take a shower, get dressed, make breakfast. Do all of these things before you touch your phone.
5. When you can, leave your phone at home. Be honest with yourself. “When you can” is far more often than you think.
Though not comprehensive, these rules are better than the reckless dependence I used to expect/demand from my cellphone. I wouldn’t call myself cured, though I have experienced some milestones. I haven’t browsed social media in over two weeks. I feel less inclined to check my pocket for my phone and even less inclined to pull it out. Limiting cellphone use has given me more time in the day to do homework, sleep, and interact with friends.
It’s hard to believe that only a generation separates us from a smartphone-free world. If you take the time to consider, us 20-somethings will be the last group of people to remember the world before high-speed Internet, ubiquitous smartphone use and Google. We’ll be one of the last generations to remember the world before Facebook, Twitter, Reddit and YouTube. In this way, we’re in a unique position. I say we should take the advantage we’ve been given — the duality of living in a hyper-mediated world but with memories of a time less fraught with easily fulfilled desires.
In any case, it’s clear what you should do. Put down your cellphone.