Getting rid of the phone

Having been an iPhone user for well over a decade, and developing apps for a number of years, I have spent my fair share in front of that small, rectangular screen. Part of that time has been useful and contributed to my life, for example reading interesting articles, taking photos and meeting my wife. But quite a large chunk of that time has also been wasted.

I took a (semi-)break from social media around two years ago, removing Instagram and Facebook from the phone but keeping my accounts. Main reason for this was reading the excellent book Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport (highly recommend!). This immediately affected my life in a positive way. But it was not an escape hatch from the smartphone addiction. Instead of scrolling the feeds, I started to follow the news, the stock market, tech blogs and even the weather forecast(!) more intense. Just to have something to do whenever I had a moment of unoccupied time.

Just to get that sweet dopamine kick from pulling down to refresh.

Getting off social media and switching to other apps was not a cure, it was a substitution.

Whenever life is slightly slow or boring, just pop up the phone from your pocket, unlock and you have the world in front of you. Renuka Gavrani recently posted a Medium article which is right on point here. My biggest take-away from the article is how you can look at your life from the perspective of having an invisible film team covering you, making the movie about your life. Will that movie be more or less interesting if the main character spends hours every day staring into a smartphone screen?

So how will I use these insights to change my phone usage, i.e. drastically reduce it?

I have been an Apple Watch user since the very first release, and now I will use it to cure my smartphone addiction. And of course: Share the progress, mistakes and learnings.

Wait, isn't that also just substituting one addiction with another you might ask? 🤔

The watch is a double edged sword. If not used intentionally, it can make the smartphone addiction even deeper. Getting mindlessly notified of updates and buzzed not only by your phone but also from your watch will most certainly increase stress. Used with the right motive however, I believe switching more phone usage to the watch can have a very positive impact on the relationship to your smartphone.

Step one is to turn off all notifications.

Being connected to internet via your watch allows for being reached, and reaching others without the phone. And without carrying the phone everywhere, it will be way easier to resist the temptation to just check that one social media app, news app, or whatever it might be. My family and friends knows that I am most likely to be reached via texts or phone calls, not on any social media. Carrying the watch also allows for sharing location with my wife.

I will try to reduce my screen time on the phone to a minimum, and spend more time being in real life. Instead of using the phone to write or edit photos, I will open up the laptop and do it deliberately. Instead of using the iPhone camera, I will bring my real camera, which is both more fun to use and has better image quality. I will try to find (or maybe create) watch apps that can replace even more use cases where I earlier relied on the phone.

Some things I will probably still use the phone for, for example learning Vietnamese with Duolingo, but I will aim to set aside time to do this purposely.

Not just as a way to pass time.

Life is way too short for that.