Jeff says that he is a better person without his phone.
Widdershins says they’re the same with or without their phone.
I think they’re both right because when Jeff gets on his phone, he doomscrolls. When Widdershins uses his phone, he contacts his family, uses it as a digital planner, music and taking photos.
Jeff is a better person without his phone because Doomscrolling on X (formerly called Twitter) has no benefits. News outlets and social media make more money the more time we spend on them. Good news don’t catch our attention. Negative news keep us worried. They concern us so we want to be updated as much as possible on them.
But as Widdershins’ example shows: your phone is not the problem, its how you use it.
…
I’ve been following this series of blog posts with interest and I think that Antonio’s hit the nail on the head.
There’s nothing inherently dangerous about phones. But they do introduce risks, and the severity of those risks varies from person to person.
Me: I’m pretty disciplined about my phone. I don’t think I have or use any “endless stream” services: the closest thing would be my feed reader, which is curated down to my chosen providers, not by an attention-craving algorithm. I keep very few games installed and don’t play them when I’m doing anything else so they’re not a distraction from any kind of communal activity (in fact, I keep relatively few “apps” installed too: if there’s a Web-based version that works even remotely as well, I’ll use that… and if it keeps trying to “push” me towards an app version, I’ll just use it less rather than cave!).
I don’t even always pick it up for every notification bell (and I keep many of those suppressed, so they’re only “when I’m checking anyway” messages): if I’m doing something else, I’ll get to whatever ‘bing’ that was later, and yes that even includes instant messengers (if you absolutely require an immediate response and need to know whether you’ll get one, why didn’t you call me, hmm?).
This feels to me like a healthy relationship with my phone. I’m not saying it’s impossible to have a healthy relationship with yours if you don’t do these things: but it’s got to be harder. I’ve people who, seconds after the conversation slows or show ends or whatever will immediately, unthinkingly, pull out their phone and disappear into it, and that seems like such an unhealthy habit.
It’s for these people, as well as for those who’ll endlessly-scroll instead of sleeping or socialising, that downgrading to a brickphone might be a sensible move, at least in the short term.
For the rest of us, it’s probably sufficient to be mindful of our screen usage, remember that it’s valuable to disconnect and let your brain rest, too. As Lyteforce observes, you can start by not using your phone while you poop. Then, once you’ve got the hang of that, get Marie Kondo on those settings and prune the notifications that don’t bring you joy. Soon you’ll be leaving your phone behind when you get up to stretch your legs or make yourself a drink. And you’ll be happier for it.
That’s just what I think, anyway.
