It’s been slightly over my month since my last update, so I thought it would be a good time to check-in. This month has had slightly unusual phone usage habits because I had to depend on my phone quite a bit in Japan and I was worried that I would continue the high usage after coming back.

Here’s how I’ve been doing:

One Month Statistics

Average Phone Use Per Day

Week 1: 1 Hour 52 Minutes per day

Week 2: 3 Hours 11 Minutes per day

Week 3: 2 Hours 11 Minutes per day

Week 4: 2 Hours 8 Minutes per day

Week 5 (today!): 1 Hour 23 Minutes per day

Average Pickups Per Day

Week 1: 73 per day

Week 2: 75 per day

Week 3: 73 per day

Week 4: 83 per day

Week 5 (today!): 65 per day

Average Notifications Per Day

Week 1: – I forgot to note this down –

Week 2: around 90 per day

Week 3: around 94 per day

Week 4: around 140 per day

Week 5 (today!): around 116 per day

Thoughts

As you can see, this week was the best in terms of me being able to leave my phone behind. Week 1 was the week after my last check in and it’s actually an improvement on the week before. However, Week 2 was the week where I was in Japan and I was pretty much on my phone the whole time – if I wasn’t taking photos, I was looking at google maps or trying to arrange meetups with friends.

Because the extra average time was spent on holiday stuff, I don’t feel bad about spending more time on my phone. I didn’t bring a camera or my laptop with me so I used my phones to take photos and edit them, something that took about 2 hours a day. But I realised it took me about two weeks to get over my habit of handling my phone everyday.

I don’t know if this week was an aberration but I think not. I’m working in a place where I don’t have good access to WiFi and unlike my last job, I don’t need to use my phone that much. So an average of one and a half hours is pretty good for me and something that I mentioned as a ‘target’ in the other post. I can actually use my phone for less than an hour a day, but that would be a day without podcasts and I would prefer to listen to them if I have the chance, so one and a half hours it is.

Regarding social media apps – I’ve reinstalled Dayre and Instagram. I managed to get a 10 minute alarm for instagram and it really works! As for Dayre, the app underwent a redesign and the change in both the app and community was a good way for me to break the habit of checking it constantly. Now, I only open the app a few times and I find that I’m enjoying it more now that I don’t have to see the drama. It’s moving back to the way I used to use the app – to keep track of my daily life and see what my friends are doing.

Moving Forward

I’ve had one good week, but I don’t want to assume all my weeks ahead are going to be like this. I’ll probably continue to monitor my usage and post another update in two months time. I’ve also read How to Break Up with Your Phone and I’d like to try at least one one-day phone fast in October. I’m thinking of doing it on a weekday before moving to a weekend (perhaps in November) because it’s pretty hard to meet people without having a phone to contact them when something pops up.

So that’s it! It’s been an eventful month and hopefully as I settle down to a new routine, my smartphone habits will settle down as well.