lake dillon, colorado
For the last two weeks I have been going with out my iPhone, at least during the daytime hours. When I leave the house for my studio in the morning, I power down my iPhone and leave it my night stand drawer, not to reunite with my scrolling addiction until the evening.
It’s been an enlightening experiencing. I have realized how addicted I have become to information, endless feeds of news stories, YoutTube videos, tweets and Instagram posts.
While I love the connectivity of the world and I am a proponent of online platforms, I also love beer and don’t need to be connected to the tap 24/7. So, I created boundaries.. real boundaries, not deleting apps or setting usage alerts that can easily be reinstated or silenced.
I turned the damn thing off.
As I went about the first week without a smart phone it felt like I was the sober one at a party full of drunks. I was aware we are all addicted to our phones, but you really notice how silly, zombie like everyone looks when you’re not facedown in yours.
Over these past two weeks I have been laser focused, significantly more aware of my surroundings, I have slept better and wait for it… I’m happier!
I haven’t gone completely unconnected, that would be insane in 2019, so I set up my Apple Watch for calls and texts, crucial in communicating in our modern society. But, those are tools, verses feeds. I don’t get sucked into them like I do with endless social media feeds designed and engineered to to keep me scrolling.
By working with two devices (Apple Watch & iPhone X) I think I have found a nice balance between “smart” and “dumb.” I now spend about an hour in the morning and hour in the evening on my Phone, socializing on social media, reading the news, etc…this is a significant reduction in screen time from before, which I don’t even want to share how bad I had become.
I wanted to write this brief post about this experience to inspire you to take a hard look at how you use your smart phone and ask yourself, do you really need that data cocktail all day long? Think about killing your phone for part of the day, you will be surprise how much of your life you get back.
JC
the photograph
A study of balance, balance between water and air, lake and sky, what is more important, what is less, with a clear horizon splitting the two into complimenting parts..
Get lost in the horizon, it has a way of bringing out a deep reflection like none-other. Let the horizon remind you what’s truly important.