My month of resisting my pocket fruit machine
‘Meg,’ I said, literally out loud to myself, ‘What are you doing? Stop checking your phone!’ But my thumb wouldn’t listen.
I don’t drink, don’t smoke, don’t do drugs. I have a very happy home life, a successful business, bake my own bread, even had a book published. I work hard at stuff and don’t think I’m someone who let’s things gets out of control very often. But I was definitely, up until the beginning of this year, in many ways, addicted to my phone.
In the queue, on the bus, definitely on the train, when someone went to order something, in the ad breaks on More4, boiling the kettle, before bed and, yes, sometimes on the loo, I would be in a refresh loop. Twitter, Instagram, Gmail, dating apps, Facebook. Around and around and around. Refresh, refresh, refresh.
Then came Digital Minimalism, which taught me: this isn’t my fault and more importantly, what to do about it.
Why does tech-in-our-hands make us both more connected but more anxious and lonely? Answer: solitude deprivation, conversation deprivation, purpose deprivation and fruit machines.
I’ve just come out of month of experimentation with digital minimalism and it’s changed my life. I still have my phone with me all the time, but, miracle of miracles, I don’t check it all the time. I’m doing more, reading more, writing more, exercising more, talking to my loved ones more and still using social media. I’ve broken the addiction!
What helped me was the concept of Digital Minimalism.
I thought Cal Newport’s Digital Minimalism was going to be a neo-Luddite ‘just turn it all off’ manifesto — which really doesn’t work for a freelancer. Clients find me through Twitter, Instagram and here on Medium — The Internet is a vital part of my business.
But as I listened to Cal Newport’s book, a few things stood out for me.
Solitude deprivation
Cal defines solitude as ‘having no input from the thoughts of others.’ So you could be on a hike in the mountains, but if you’re listening to a podcast or an audiobook, you’re not in solitude. Alternatively, you could be in a busy cafe and if you’re just sitting there with your notebook or a blank page (or, you know just sitting there you weirdo), you’re in solitude.
Social media and instant messaging have meant that we — no, let me talk for myself — that I was very rarely in solitude. In a queue, on the bus, on my run, in the advert breaks, I’d be refreshing, checking, chatting.
We’re not built for this open-ended constant conversation that happens on email and WhatsApp, etc. It keeps a social part of our brain always on, and so we never are able to recharge.
Lack of solitude can lead to feelings of being out of control, which may be some of the anxiety that is exhibited by people who are always connected to what we used to call The Information Superhighway. [retro smile]
Question: When were you last in solitude, with no input from the thoughts of others?
(Wait, don’t go…)
Tech is stealing our time
Tech the way it is built nowadays takes up a lot of time. Digital Minimalism really made me think about the things I’d like to be doing more — especially writing, reading, learning and taking a more active role in activism — and examining whether tech was taking up time that could be spent doing those things.
He really emphasises that a month with much diminished tech is not a digital ‘detox’ which implies you’ll go back after your low-tech spa break, but a digital declutter where you think about your whole life and the place that tech, and particularly your phone, rightfully takes.
Question: Is tech right-sized in your life or is it stealing time from things you’d rather be doing?
Fruit machines in our pockets
When I think about why I would want to stay on social media, I thought of three things:
staying abreast of news
keeping connected with people (some of whom I only have loose connections with, but I quite like that collegiate warmth), and
being findable for potential customers.
Social media companies want us on social media so they can sell our attention.
They have invested more in phone apps than desktop apps. They have literally taken tech from Las Vegas fruit machines with their long schedules of reinforcement and put them into our pockets. This is totally unnecessary for us to enjoy the benefits we want to enjoy. They are manipulating our dopamine with notifications, pull-to-refresh, like/fave stats and so on.
I think this particularly insidious right now when we need to be putting concerted effort towards individual and collective action on climate and social justice. Having tech in our pockets which make us addicted to serve capitalism is pretty evil. So I think getting control back is kind of a moral imperative.
I find I’m particularly prone to this manipulation when I’m tired or anxious. Early in the morning, middle-of-the-day slump, transition time from one activity to the next, and before sleep I would go through the Twitter-Instagram-Gmail roundabout, again and again, just once more, just once more.
And my feed is not full of celeb-news. I follow hundreds of really thought-provoking people. So the links and commentary are really insightful (the people I follow on Twitter have totally shaped my politics over the years) and, often, hilarious.
But the fruit machines would get me every time. One. Refresh. At. A. Time.
Question: Do you ever find yourself unable to get out of a refresh loop?
So I had to find ways of getting the benefits I want, without letting my life be stolen away. [Note: I am relatively neurotypical, so if you’re more neurodiverse, and even if you’re not, your mileage may vary, of course. Just sharing what is working for me.]
Here’s what I tried out over the month.
Apps I can live without get deleted
I thought through what I actually needed to use, for my business, mainly. I haven’t had Facebook on my phone for ages, so I mainly use Twitter, Instagram and What’sApp.
For me, WhatsApp is essential — it’s where I keep up with loads of people and I hold the space for ReadMore, a little group of people who want to, yep, read more. It’s also the main way my close people stay in contact with me during the day. Plus: no desktop app (unless you have it on your phone). This means I couldn’t do something drastic like turning off the data on my phone.
Twitter I haven’t been using well in a while, so I’ve moved that to my laptop. I actually started to use Buffer to schedule four tweets a day with links to my work stuff, so that gets done without me falling into a hole. Then partway through the month, I realised I could use the Buffer app even when I want to post random thoughts and questions, so I put that on my phone instead of the Twitter app.
I monitor replies when I get to Twitter on my scheduled social media sessions. I use Buffer to post once a day to my work Facebook page and my LinkedIn page too (for the people who actually like being on LinkedIn — some of y’all use it like business Facebook — [don’t-get-it-but-you-do-you shrug]).
Gmail
I disabled Gmail on my phone — I really don’t need to see emails urgently. I reload it for days when I’m travelling to client stuff in case someone needs to get in touch or I need addresses or something, but apart from that, I can check email on my laptop.
The hard one was Instagram as I do like posting stuff there, but you can’t really post to Instagram remotely. So I kept Instagram but loaded an app blocker.
Question: What can you absolutely not live without on your phone?
App blocker for the rest
Before I’d even read Digital Minimalism, I’d downloaded an app blocker called AppBlock and stopped my access to social media apps, email, TV and internet browsers between 10.15pm and 7.00am (I like to have my light off at 10.30 and be meditating at 6.15ishish). After I started cheating it, I set it to ‘strict mode’ which means you can’t change the settings or uninstall it and made my partner set a PIN (be careful — on Android at least this means you can’t access any of your phone’s settings whilst strict mode is in place).
Although this helped, it kind of missed the point — that I needed to build a more fulfilling leisure time (this is the Purpose Deprivation stuff I mentioned earlier) and healthier responses to anxiety (more on that in a bit).
I’ve kept the app blocker on even though I’ve evicted most of the apps, as every now and again I forget, have my phone in my hand before bed and fall down a hole of scrolling/googling.
The place where this really came in handy in my digital minimalism month has been for Instagram. Seeing as it’s easy to check/comment on the browser, but hard to post to Instagram without the app, well… danger-danger.
What I came up with was, in addition to the clock-time based blocking, I added a 15-min duration limit setting, after which Instagram specifically is blocked for the rest of the day.
This puts pressure on me to post and get out of there. Sometimes, if it’s a long post, I’ll even write the text in Evernote and copy and paste it into my caption.
Question: Do you need to take some of the self-discipline out of your hands with an app blocker?
Phone in lounge and alarm clock in bedroom
I hate jarring alarms. Hate being shocked out of sleep. HATE. IT.
One of my reasons for having my phone charging overnight in my bedroom was that I used a really gentle sound to wake me up, starting super quiet and ramping up over 2 mins. I generally wake up as soon as it starts.
But phone in the bedroom too often equals phone in my hand, WhatsApping and refreshing whatever apps aren’t blocked. Sometimes phone in the bedroom also equals phone tethered to my laptop so I can get around the app blocker (see above — my tired self is tricksy).
So: I searched on Evil Prime for ‘gentle alarm clocks’ or something. I got a clock that not only has a wind chime sound that you can set really quiet, but it has a slow glowing light that starts a few minutes before your alarm to gradually bring you to consciousness.
You can even turn the glowing time display off so the room stays dark.
LOVE it.
So my phone gets exiled to the lounge every night before bed and it’s totally changed my night time routine.
Question: Do you really need your phone in your room at night?
Scheduled social media periods
It’s pretty vital to my coaching and consulting business that I’m visible on social media — most of my clients come across me that way or me posting at least reminds the people who love me that I’m here so they can refer me.
So I’m not someone who can just come off social media — not easily, anyway.
I have started only doing social media in timed slots, with a schedule of what needs doing in what priority. Posting is top priority, then replying to comments. Only after that’s all done if I still have time will I go and start reading the feed.
I still get drawn in occasionally, but mainly I’m staying out of scroll holes and keeping my head clear.
Question: Would scheduled social media periods help you stay conscious?
Add in challenging leisure activities
One of the major contentions that Cal has in his book is about the importance of challenging leisure activities — particularly physical ones. So I’ve added in two main things: focused language learning and complex knitting.
Focused language learning means not just faffing around on Duolingo, listening to Lorena Franco books whilst I run, or watching Ingobernable whilst washing up (though I do all of those OBVS), but doing things like Shadowing and Scriptorium which take a lot of brain power and increase working memory and so on.
Complex knitting is something that I love and it follows on from Cal’s suggestion that doing solid tool-using fulfils an evolved need that can lead us to feeling very content. I’m currently doing lace knitting for which I can’t even have anything with words on in the background. (Sidebar: I was waiting for some significant news the other day and getting this knitting out was amazing as I just had no other thoughts in my brain apart from making sure I didn’t miss a stitch in that row’s stitch pattern!) I have a more relaxed knitting project on the go for when my hands need occupying, but I don’t let that count when I’m colouring in the ‘knitting’ square on my tracker.
Question: What challenging activities could you do in some of your leisure time? Are you getting progress on things you’d like to be doing/learning?
News via weekly magazine/podcast
I had to really think this through and I’m not sure I’ve gotten to the perfect solution, but I obviously want to stay informed, whilst not being controlled by social media companies that are putting billions of dollars into trapping my eyeball-brain connection.
I first considered getting a daily newspaper but I know from past experience that that doesn’t work — they just pile up.
Here’s my current solution.
I’ve subscribed to The Week — a round-up of UK and global news journalism in a very abbreviated digest form. I’m not entirely sure of the politics behind it (they seem to share right-leaning quotes a little more than left-leaning ones) but at least I’m not missing huge news stories. Maybe this means I’m getting out of my liberal/left bubble, and at least with printed media I know that I’m not being served versions of stories based on my Google history. Plus as it’s paper I don’t get distracted.
I aim to read 20 mins of The Week a day, which means with it arriving on Friday, I’m normally done by Tuesday. [Update: I’m trying Guardian Weekly instead.]
Reading last week’s news has an interesting affect on adrenaline: it triggers my danger tension much less.
I still get plenty of commentary on news stories from smart people I follow on Twitter.
I’ve also subscribed to a weekly global news roundup on the World Service, but haven’t quite gotten around to listening.
So far I don’t feel any ill effects, I’m not at a loss in conversations and I don’t feel less informed than I did when I was clicking Twitter/Facebook links.
We’ll see.
Question: Can you get your news from a less attention-grabby source?
Stopped watching TV on my own
Stopping watching TV altogether would have been quite a nuclear option, as I sit with my people and we watch some of our favourite shows most evenings. It would have cut me off from some of our favourite sofa-unwind fun.
So I decided instead to not watch any TV on my own — no streaming, not even while washing up or in the bath (I used to watch Netflix on my phone in a little waterproof case).
Yes, this means I’ve had to cut out shows that only I watch, which is kind of weird.
Interestingly enough, it’s driven me to story in other forms. I crave plot and characters and banter, so I feel a pull towards whatever fiction I’m reading (see below for my how-to-read-more tip).
For when I need unchallenging story stimulation, I listen to a Dungeons and Dragons play-along podcast called Join The Party which has almost as many episodes as the epic start-from-S1E01-Grey’s-Anatomy marathon I started over a year ago.
[Edited to add: After the month was up, I’ve changed my standards a bit. I’m currently allowing myself a bit of lone TV at weekends (focus on ‘a bit’) plus Spanish language TV in the week when I’m washing up. Feels educational. Don’t @ me.]
Question: Are you happy with your TV habits?
Put phone and notebook in a bag and carry a book
Ok, this one was a weird one but VERY effective.
Factors:
It doesn’t work for me to turn off the internet on my phone or leave it at home. I use WhatsApp too much.
I use a notebook to run a cut-down version of Bullet Journal — I don’t keep my list on my phone, as that means looking at my phone, which is too tempting.
I want to carry a book with me so that I read more.
Carrying the notebook and phone in my hand was too much (in stores I’d be putting them down and that’s a recipe for disaster). Trying to carry a book as well? Yeah, no.
So I got myself a little plain clutch, just enough for my phone, notebooks, a pen and a lipbalm. This is in addition to the massive purse I have in my bag, that has everything else in — hand sanitiser, scent, makeup, loyalty cards, business cards, a sharpie. The clutch is literally just for the things I need in my hand. That means I have to actually open the bag and go in there to ‘check’ my phone at random moments in the day and means in those moments I’m much more likely to read the book I now carry in my hand.
I try and make sure I have the clutch and my book with me even at home, so that when I feel an urge to Look At The Phone, I read a few sentences of my book instead.
Question: How do you carry your phone with you? Can you make it slightly less accessible?
Try to have more conversations rather than text
Another thing that Cal points out in his book is that ongoing text conversations can lead us to not have the kind of connection we’re really built for: conversation. This is what I’ve called Conversation Deprivation.
My experience is that texting can just ‘take the edge off’ so I less regularly end up actually speaking to someone if they’re not in my immediate vicinity, which for someone who tends to work from home or client premises, can mean pretty much everyone.
Some of my close people are people who need to look after their energy levels, so I get that phone conversations or in-person conversations can take a lot of their energy allocation for the day. So text and voice notes serve a good purpose there.
I’ve been trying with everyone else to have more spoken conversations — mainly on phone/Zoom as most of my people live outside my city. As a coach, my life is built around appointments, so I just made a new type of appointment in my booking system called ‘Friend catchup’ which is a 30 minute slot which goes straight into my calendar. I’m experimenting with Fabriq which let’s you keep track of who you’d like to talk to and reminds you if you haven’t recently.
I’ve definitely had more conversations with friends in the past month. It takes much more energy than it used to as texting and social media has left me out of practice, but it definitely feels good.
Question: Are you having the conversations you’d like to be having?
The digital minimalism experiment continues…
After a month or so of a digital declutter, I’m definitely continuing. I’m reading loads more, had more conversations, feeling more satisfied that I’m doing more of what I’ve been craving and what feels coherent with my values.
In fact, this article has come about because I’m able to write more because I schedule it in and my head is clearer.
We need to get our lives back from the billion dollar corporations who are working very hard to keep us addicted, so we can live the lives we want, both for ourselves and the future.
I’d definitely recommend you think through some of the questions I’ve posed you, and let me know how you get on.