TacoTalks

Breaking the Smartphone Habit: Week Two

Alright, it’s time for the Week Two update! The numbers for this week are definitely a skewed because I just came back from Hong Kong and the lack of data there meant that I was using my phone much less than normal.

Still, this week has been interesting. It’s not really related but I was listening to a trailer for season two of The Last Movie and I was suddenly hit with memories of Sasebo and having my podcast constantly on. It’s rather scary how I’m forgetting the place – even the name of where I lived. I wonder if using my smartphone hindered some of these memories; while I can definitely remember things if I’m reading past entries about my life in Japan, the number of concrete memories I have associated to songs and other items feels much less (especially compared to my first trip to Japan). Since I’ve not used my phone to journal on this trip, we’ll see in a few years if writing down my memories and sharing to social media ASAP helps or hinders the formation of long term concrete memories.

I also managed to meet another friend for lunch and during our conversation, he asked me how I was doing about three times. Not because he wasn’t listening, but because I kept talking about work and travels and basically other stuff going on. It’s easy to use things that you’re doing as a substitute for talking about how you actually are, so this is something I’m going to be more aware of when talking to people from now on. Not just in trying to be more honest in my conversations but also to really listen when people are talking. (This isn’t really about my phone, except for the fact that we both had our phones down during lunch)

This week’s statistics and thoughts

Average phone use this week: 2 hours and 13 minutes a day – That’s only 13 minutes less than last week. I realised this week that it’s very easy to end up using the phone for long stretches; we were experiencing a delay in boarding and I picked up my phone to play a round of Tsum Tsum before reading a book and the next thing I knew, half an hour had passed.

The highest usage days were Tuesdays and Fridays. For Tuesday, it was because of work, for Friday, it was because of Tsum Tsum.

Average pickups per day: 81 per day – 36 less than last week but I know that Friday, Saturday, and Sunday brought my average way down. I only picked up my phone 37 times on Saturday, which is an amazingly low number for me. I didn’t actually miss it that much and it didn’t feel so different from other days.

Average notifications per day: Around 185 per day – 58 less than last week! I think the post-event rush is dying down, which means that as notifications go down, there’s really no reason for me to keep picking up my phone.

Top apps: Safari, Tsum Tsum, Whatsapp. Tsum Tsum is replacing my social media usage which isn’t good. But there’s an event going on which is why I’m so reluctant to put the phone down sometimes.

Apps deleted: -NIL-

Apps reinstalled: -NIL-

Thoughts: Someone (sorry, I keep forgetting to ask if I can use your name!) wrote in asking if my sleep has been better since I started this experiment. I wrote back saying that I tend to sleep less if I use social media before bed because it takes up more time, but after thinking a bit more, I think there is more to it. My mind runs wild pretty easily and the smallest thing can start a cycle of repeated thoughts in my head. It’s basically the same thing as ‘social media makes me feel lousy about myself’. So in a way, getting off social media on the device I use the most does help to prevent triggers. But, if I’m having a particularly bad week, the one thing that helps the most is medication. I’ve noticed that if I’m having a string of bad nights, medication is the best way for me to break the cycle and start feeling well-rested again.

I’ve also noticed that although I’ve been spending less time on social media, I’ve spent more time looking at online and offline shops. My willpower has definitely gone down and although I haven’t made any major purchases, I have been buying bubble tea and snacks a lot more than usual. It looks like I may have mistaken constant distraction by smartphone for willpower against buying things – I will definitely have to confront my buying patterns soon, hopefully by the end of the year.

Given that I’m still on Tsum Tsum and other gaming apps, not to mention surfing the internet, I’m considering downloading something to restrict the websites I can visit on safari or deleting the gaming apps. But I’m still in two minds about this because these activities don’t actually impact my mental state (or at least, they don’t seem to) and I’m not sure if cutting down phone time for the sake of cutting down phone time is a good idea. Any thoughts on the matter?

6 thoughts on “Breaking the Smartphone Habit: Week Two

  1. This is interesting! I started using an app to track my phone usage too and was blown away by the results… SO. MUCH. TIME. I spend on this thing. It’s ridiculous. But then again, it made me aware of my habits and how I can work on them so that’s good. I also tend to spend more time on my phone while at work (oops) and less on weekends (because there’s just so many fun things to do!)
    We always tend to fill in a lost habit with a new habit, so that’s probably what’s happening with you (the shopping, etc.) It’ll take time until you feel like you don’t need either of them, but until then maybe a restricting app would help? I know when I have less distractions I tend to eat more junk food or snacks, just because I’m bored and my brain mistakes that for hunger hahaha I think we both got to find a way to work around that 😉
    Sorry I don’t have a solution but if I find one, I’ll let you know!

    1. Yes! I was pretty shocked at how much I used my phone when I first started this 😝

      If only my brain automatically replaced bad habits with good ones! I’ll definitely be looking into restricting apps 😊

  2. Hi Eustacia–As I mentioned before, I have found regular and consistent time at the gym has limited idle time for me. It is when I am idle that I tend to spend more time on phone apps and social media, which often means non-productive time! As for sleep: you said you sometimes have difficulty taming random thoughts. Have you tried meditation? I’ve had mixed results. In fact, today I awoke at 4:30am and couldn’t get back to sleep even after attempting meditation, but, occasionally it works, especially deep-breathing exercises. By concentrating on deep-breathing patterns, I can sometimes prevent outside thoughts that then enable me to get back to sleep, It doesn’t work all the time (probably because I haven’t been practicing enough!) but it might help and is certainly better than meds!

    1. I’ve tried breathing exercises, but they don’t always work. Normally, I try to just go ahead and do whatever the thought is (e.g. checking on something) but I might try writing it down to reassure myself I won’t forget.

  3. Some people just don’t need much sleep. However, if you are finding yourself run down by the afternoon because of a sleepless night, then that would suggest you need additional rest. Success with deep-breathing exercise for me came with practice. The more I engaged in these exercises, the better I became at clearing my thoughts. I got pretty good at it so that I only had to begin the exercise before I feel asleep. However, I am out of practice now. This is a link about it (scroll down to the Andrew Weil video). Perhaps this is the deep-breathing exercise you are already familiar with. But, even as Dr. Weil suggests, practice makes perfect! I hope you are able to get some sleep without meds soon!https://www.medicaldaily.com/life-hack-sleep-4-7-8-breathing-exercise-will-supposedly-put-you-sleep-just-60-332122

What do you think?