My smartphone stole my reality
and how i'm stealing it back
When I stop scrolling on my phone the thought ‘oh, yes, reality - here you are’ pops into my consciousness. The time that passed whilst I was curled up in the foetal position, brow furrowed, furiously skimming articles online, is unquantifiable to me and all I notice in my body is the sensation of having a head. You know in meditation sometimes the guide will do a body scan where they ask you to focus your attention on different body parts and for a second you actually feel as though that body part is tingling or glowing or throbbing? That’s how it feels - like my head is all that exists of me.
This morning I was engaged in the rabbit hole that is Substack (yes I can tell myself that Substack is not ‘really’ social media but that would be dishonest) and a second thought followed the first - ‘if this is reality, where have I been?’. Of course I know where I’ve been - online - but is online reality? Where am I living if I’m not living in reality?
In these moments of questioning I was physically still in the foetal position staring into space with an intense look on my face - one of those rare moments where I think I see things so clearly it might be a stroke of genius. On quick reflection, I don’t think this is anything to write home about (nor to you, probably) - it seems obvious when I think about it that engaging with a screen requires me to live inside my head. Sure, I use my thumb to scroll or press a few buttons but it’s pretty typical that my body is otherwise in sleep mode and all of my focus and energy is sent to my brain. I imagine a heat map of my body showing a glowing red head on a blue body.
In the moments where I do happen to be using my body whilst I’m engaged with my phone I’m going through automatic motions I’ve done a thousand times - my commute, walking my dog, lining up for coffee. I don’t notice the idiosyncrasies of the day like hearing the new barista at the coffee shop tell me she likes my tote bag or seeing the cygnets leave their nest for the first time this spring at the local pond.
My shocking revelation this morning? The price of living in my head is living outside my head. The price of spending time on my phone is spending time in reality. The price of scrolling is living. These last few sentences read pretty melodramatically - but it’s my honest truth. Think about how many times you’ve used your phone to escape reality - I know I do it all the time, without even realising it.
Take the examples of my commute, walking my dog, lining up for coffee - all of those things include potentially uncomfortable micro-moments. I find it uncomfy to stand in line at the coffee shop not knowing where to look or what to do with my hands, so I mindlessly tap between apps on my phone even though there is nothing on there that requires my attention. I find it uncomfy to sit on the tube with nothing to do with my hands so I click clack around on Whatsapp even though I’ve not got any messages. I notice everyone else at the dog park is standing around on their phone whilst their dogs enjoy the best twenty minutes of their day and I don’t know how to not look like I’m loitering so I take my phone out too.
I’m not saying I have to be uncomfortable just because I don’t want to miss out on reality - being uncomfy isn’t a quest of mine, I’ve had enough discomfort for a lifetime thank you. I won’t stop using my noice cancelling headphones in noisy cafes, or wearing sunglasses on the tube so I can daydream in peace without making unsolicited eye contact with a stranger - I need these things for my nervous system to healthily digest reality. But are some of these uncomfy moments uncomfy just because I’m not used to living in their reality? Am I used to escaping to the reality in my head via my phone because that’s the easy, and habitual, thing to do? Absolutely - and those are the moments in which living inside my head is a trap.
I genuinely find joy in thinking. I love to mull over ideas, look at problems from different angles, and understand how other people think about things too. As an artist I find no greater sense of purpose than taking an idea and expressing it to the world. It’s not the act of being ‘in my head’ that I dislike. It’s the fact of feeling trapped in my head that scares me.
Think about it - I can be out on a walk appreciating beautiful parts of nature i’ve never seen before and happen upon a fascinating conversation with someone I bump into; I can read a book and be in my head considering its arguments and ideas and physically turn the pages, look up and around me, and even stop to take notes; I can be making an informational zine about a topic i’ve learned lots about and want to share with other people and take a break to hear about my husbands day. These activities do not trap me in my head - my attention can flow between focus on the activity that I love and the environment around me (I’m not talking about multi-tasking, but the act of consciously directing my attention).
The thing with my phone is that the only option is living in my head. I can’t be on my phone and also be living in reality. I’d go so far as to say that glancing at my phone screen feels like being sucked into a vortex where the whole world around me just disappears. Again - this is not new news! What is news, though, is my experiences of what life is like when i’m not living in my head through my phone. Since i’ve been off social media completely (with the exception of Substack where I share this blog) and taken various measures to reduce my phone usage i’ve experienced how living in reality feels different, feels better, feels like living should feel. Collaging, making zines, sitting outside in the sun for breakfast, reading fiction for fun, going to the library, seeing friends for coffee, volunteering at a dog shelter - all of these things tie me to something greater than my own internal world. They tie me to history, art, literature, people, places and animals in a way that encompasses my whole being.
One of the greatest myths of the age of hyper-productivity is that multi-tasking is possible. I loathe that this lie has developed such that in some social circles (i’m thinking particularly in the corporate sphere) saying you are a multitasker is even seen as some kind of status symbol. This makes no sense; the cognitive science says so - “we know that multitaskers do less and miss information”.
If I have one life with finite time, which I do - why would I live it in such a way that I am able to do less of the things I want to do and miss absorbing, learning, or understanding things I find interesting about the reality around me? Oliver Burkeman hit the nail on the head when he said “what you pay attention to will define, for you, what reality is.”
I’m not naive to the fact that smart phones aren’t going to magically disappear. It’s now difficult to be a member of society and not have one - take for example my bank requiring authentication via a mobile app. There’re also a lot of great features of smartphones that help us to remain connected in what feels like an ever-expanding world. I can call my brother who lives in America on Facetime for free and chat with him as if he’s right there having breakfast with me. Disappear they may not, but i’m not kidding myself anymore - I can choose to reclaim my reality from my smartphone, and I will. It won’t always be perfect - god knows i’m only human, but these are some of the measures i’m taking that help.
Horrify myself by tracking my time
When I first decided to work out how much of my reality my smartphone was stealing I tracked my screen time. Gosh, if that’s not a sure-fire way to make a lasting change I don’t know what is!
Identify triggers for high usage
Tracking my screen time helped me identify triggers for high usage. It’s useful to know these so I can be extra aware of my behaviours and the excuses I make up for myself like ‘i’m having a difficult day so of course it’s fine I spend four hours on YouTube in bed’ (no shade - we all deal differently with difficult days - but for me it’s tried and tested that it never actually helps).
Use a basic flip phone in tandem with a smartphone
My sim card is in a Nokia 2720 flip phone so I treat this as my main phone. I also have a smart phone because of the aforementioned need for apps for day-to-day living, but I take the below measures to make my smartphone as unappealing as possible and see it as more of a ‘tool’ than a phone I use everyday.
Use Whatsapp on desktop
My flip phone/smart phone set up means I can still use Whatsapp on my laptop which means I can’t respond to messages when out and about.
Silent or disable notifications
All notifications are turned off on my smartphone and it’s always on silent. My flip phone is on loud, but I only get calls and the occasional text so it’s not distracting.
Change homepage
I keep a clear homepage with a plain background.
Set screen to black and white
Setting the screen to black and white makes it much less appealing.
Delete social media apps and other unnecessary apps
My social media apps are all gone! I tried the middle ground of only using them at certain times of day/week, for certain purposes, or for certain amounts of time but it didn’t work - I always broke my self-imposed rules. For me, cold-turkey is the way forward. The only social media app I still use, that i’ve mentioned, is Substack. I only use the website on my laptop.
Add a password to the app store
This is a pre-emptive measure so on those difficult days I can’t redownload the apps. My partner set the password.
Use do not disturb mode
I have do not disturb mode on between the hours of 6pm and 9am. All notifications are off anyway, but it means if I try to open an app during those hours it notifies me I shouldn’t be doing it and only allows me 15 minutes to use the app if I choose to override the do not disturb.
Find alternatives
Smart phones become less shiny if there are other shiny things available to do.
Let me leave you with a visual representation of what life was like before we all had smartphones to live through. Before I gave up youtube a week ago as part of of my digital minimalism experiment, I stumbled upon uploads of kids from the ‘90s in their last days at school - it’s a jarring contrast to today’s reality.
WEEKLY NOTES:
I started Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention by Johann Harri for Rewild Book Club. It’s brilliant - I can’t wait to discuss the first few chapters with you next week.
“My job isn’t to know who I am. My job is to make space for who I am” - Jacob Collier on the Colin and Samir podcast.
If your measure of a soul-touching song is crying ugly tears in the bath, this one is up there. This music video adds to the listening experience, and features the wonderful Dodie.
wrestled with a topic I’ve been mulling over in her essay titled “Against self-analysis”.I feel myself cultivating the practice of awe lately which reminded me of this stunning poem by Andrea Gibson called ‘The Lifegiving Benefits of Befriending Our Mortality’.
I read the entire archive of newsletter
by Emily Hubbard in one evening in the bath - so good!This week I created something every day instead of spending time on screens and it was an absolute hoot - these are the seven things I created:
Thank you for reading! xoxo
This is so true. It’s so easy to get caught up in the endless cycle of checking apps. I’ve seen my phone use skyrocket since I started actively job hunting and I’m taking conscious steps to reduce it. Have you read How To Break Up With Your Phone by Catherine Price? I found it really helpful previously - might have to read it again once I’ve landed a new role…
I really love this. The more people who share a more offline way of being, the more courage it gives to the rest of us ❤️