re: i'm ok with my screentime
I just read Ava's post about her screentime, and it's made me reflect a bit more on how my views on my phone and general screen usage has grown and changed.
I've written probably too many times on here now about how I hate what my phone has done to my life. How it's wrecked my attention span, how it's changed my relationships with people based on how quick I can digitally contact them, etc. However, I think I've really started to learn how to control myself and use my phone in healthy ways, as Ava has.
My biggest "bad" use of my phone is social media doomscrolling, hands down. I find that I'm the most prone to falling down the rabbit hole when I have nothing else pressing to keep me busy. I have an immense work related guilt complex, in that I'll feel horrible if I'm relaxing in any way if I don't feel that I have all of my work done.
In some ways, this is very much a blessing for me. I really adore the feeling of being productive, of checking things off the to do list. However, it does make me put work above all other facets of my life that would otherwise keep me balanced, often leading to burnout.
Being at school, especially being at the studio has helped me manage both my monkey brain urge to scroll with being in an inherently productive environment, all wrapped up with the ribbon of having friends always around me. When in environments like I'm in now, I often forget about my phone for the whole day until the nightly plug-in. I thrive off of a routine, class or work or artistic pursuit that keeps me in action. Purpose, purpose, purpose!
So the truth is, I simply need to keep myself busy in other ways, and then the not so useful uses of the phone become much less interesting to me. I use my phone for one off notes now when I don't have a pen and paper near, for music, for photos, and for contacting people. This is pretty much the extent of how much I want to rely on my phone. Ava is right, these uses only add to my life, not take away from it.
Maybe it's reducing the phone to only the tool that it is, and not the constant companion that it's been believed to be. All of my personal uses can and have been done while multitasking. The only fear is when I have no more tasks to keep me from zoning, is that I'll fall right back into the scrolling pattern. It happened over the winter break when I was at home with nothing else to do, and it took such a toll on me mentally.
Whenever I'm bored, I need to seek work, or a hobby outside of my scrolling if I can help it, but that doesn't mean I can't watch a good YouTube essay or some sitcom episodes. Just as long as it isn't escapism, or copping out of the natural need for boredom. I've seen the trend of dopamine menus, these "menus" of activities to do when boredom strikes, and I've been debating making one. Maybe not so glamorized, but just laying out my options for when that lost feeling strikes.
Thank you Ava for making me reflect on my technology growth! I think I'm really starting to find the healthy medium between man and computer chip little by little.