Becoming terminally offline
It's That Damn Phone
I've noticed a change in myself over the last few months. It started as intentional, but I think it has somewhat snowballed and built upon itself in a neat way.
Everyone wants to use their phone less, or at least the people in many of my circles want to. I've slowly but surely uncovered a path to bring myself in this direction. After a few months1 I've made enough progress that I think it may be interesting to jot down.
But Why!
Phones in the modern age are, generally, viruses. Especially in Merriam Webster's 2nd definition of the word2. They do a few things that are absolutely harmful and quite a few more that debatably bring more harm than good. Such as:
- Allowing megacorporations to ping advertisements directly to your thigh and ears
- Enabling doom-/zombie-scrolling
- Encouraging being "always reachable" in both a professional and interpersonal context
- Something something blue light and sleep. Circadian rhythms. Probably not ideal
- Inventing the sensation of phantom vibrations/notifications3
- Replacing public presence with scrolling, texts, Twitter, etc. Less small talk
- Other bad things I've undoubtedly felt but am unable to immediately continue recalling
Getting rid of the bad from phones without tossing the good is hard, bordering on impossible. I think that is why you see so many people4 going the "nuclear route" and tossing away as much as they can all at once.
But How!
Unfortunately I cannot go full ascetic monk for a couple reasons. Primarily, I need a smartphone that can do smartphone things for work. Secondarily, my willpower is not very strong.
Instead, though, I took a layered approach filled with small experiments. Some successful, some not. This is my only blanket recommendation for people who want a change but don't know how to get there. My individual experiments are personal and nominally applicable to you dear reader. However en mass I think this type of approach can work for a lot of people.
Here is a non-conclusive list of random things I have tried:
- Watching lots of videos about how bad social media and technology is for our ape brains. (This helped radicalize me and define my goals but it is really, really, really easy to fall into the "productivity trap" of thinking about self improvement more than doing self improvement)
- Disabling notifications on problematic apps. (This didn't work until I uninstalled the apps cold turkey for multiple months to break the muscle memory to open them when bored)
- Uninstalling apps that I know cause problems. Things like Discord, TikTok, Instagram, etc. Anything that I "catch" myself going to over and over without realizing it. (This worked really well, though a lot of these I ended up reinstalling in cycles as I went on vacations away from my PC or needed them for a specific purpose)
- Using an app to limit screentime and add a "pause" on opening zombie-prone apps (ScreenZen on Android). Currently this blocks YouTube completely in the mornings to help me get out of bed and adds a 10s pause to things like Facebook that suck but have utility and can't be removed. (This worked really well, too. But it is easy to bypass so would not be an end-all be-all for me)
- Using a pomodoro timer. (This did nothing for me but I didn't really try it that much)
- Fixing my sleep. (This has been a long and arduous journey but tl;dr being tired when you lay in bed means you'll be on your phone less before you fall asleep. See Alarms that work for me)
- Installing an e-reader app. (This is good and a nice way to spend 15m+ blocks of downtime instead of scrolling through memes and short form videos)
- Installing an rss feed app. (Also good, same as above but ideal for shorter and more unknown bouts of downtime)
- Picking up new hobbies. (Really, really good. At some point I will write an entire post about my getting back into reading and how enjoyable that has been. Also gym stuffs)
Ain't it funny?
Some of these things worked for me and others didn't. Some worked immediately and others took months of tweaking before I realized they were doing something. You should cultivate evergreen curiosity in your life. If something needs improved brainstorm what, why, how, and when and try some things. Do new things5 until something sparks joy and sticks.
In lighter news, check out this video of the GeForce GTX 680 launch from 2012. Hilarious yet nostalgic in the context of the current... everything...
Or many months. Or a couple years. Depends how you start counting.↩
In case this is changed or removed at some point: "something that poisons the mind or soul"↩
This is probably less actually bad but extremely irksome. Especially when you realize how quickly phone habits have carved through your brain.↩
I saw a really cool video a while back on YouTube about a guy who would bury this RFID tag that was required to "unlock" 95% of his phone's apps at the top of a mountain. It worked pretty well for him but I cannot for the life of me find that video again.↩
Lesswrong is known as a bit of a cult when it comes to their philosophy takes from what I know, but a lot of their community members' opinion pieces are intriguing.↩