May 8, 2024

Reclaiming boredom - Part 1 - Relationship with the phone

by

Natalia

Mobile phones in our lives became, by the easiness of use and portability, an extension, an inseparable presence, in our day by day, and hour by hour. My mission was to define what I want the phone to be and what I don’t. Instead of leaving it to the app developers, marketeers and businesses profiting of my attention. Phone is a tool, an important tool.

My hypothesis: Smartphones should be used more intentionally, right now they have too many functions and they get mixed into our lives too close and too much.

The phone shouldn’t interrupt our lives so many times. It should be used to accomplish certain tasks, but not as a distraction. We shouldn’t use our phones to distract ourselves from feelings of boredom, anxiety, stress or at least not all the time. The phone should be used intentionally. Otherwise it takes over our lives minute by minute. Just as we use food to distract ourselves, we also use phones to distract ourselves, to entertain ourselves. The brain doesn’t need to be all the time occupied doing something. And it shouldn’t.

The phone is next to us at all times. We’re counting on it’s presence all the time. I believe we should also be more independent. There is this quote I read:

“When phones were tied with a wire humans were free” and it has a lot of truth in it.

I feel that I want to keep wander free and use the phone whenever needed at the same time.

To change the relationship with my phone I went on a mission first to discover how was the current one. What are the tasks I do on the phone and are were my motivations behind them. In this way I examined each use case and decided to reevaluate if it’s something I want to go on doing or not.

The purpose is to rewire the brain. By building awareness I can teach my brain to think about the phone in different terms. Whenever I use the phone I can think is it something I need to be doing now? Or is it supposed to ease my boredom / anxiety / discomfort ? Many times I find it’s the latter. The world goes on without me needing to intervene at all times. I want to consciously reclaim my freedom, my boredom, and my discomfort. This will brought me on a path to redefine my relationship with the phone.

Step one: Examine current use. Application by application see what I’m doing and why. Use screen time to measure and check where the most of my time goes.

Below are some first steps I took.

Define tasks to be done on the phone:


What I want the phone to be?

  • Tool to communicate with people - deliberate actions of contact with the people that are at the moment far from us.

    • Phone

    • SMS

    • Whatsapp

    • Messenger

    • Telegram

    • Slack

    • Bumble

    • Discord

  • Tool to save and organise invoices out of home.

  • A camera to take pictures and videos.

  • A tool to use the drone or a gimball.

  • A tool to check the weather / waves / tides.

  • A tool to check the map.

  • A tool to make transfers.

  • A tool to take notes.

  • A tool to use pomodoro timer.

  • A tool to read books / articles.

  • A tool to listen to music.

  • A tool to train - create workouts, sync with the Garmin watch.


What I don’t want the phone to be?

  • Not to check health data / strava application - this can be done on the computer with more deliberation and care for details.

  • Not to check emails - emails can be checked on the computer only - there is no urgency.

  • Not to check social media. I can use social media to get inspiration and connect but in scheduled times. Can be done at home on other devices. I think I don’t want to have social media on the phone. Social media should be something used deliberately to connect with the world and not to have constantly available on the phone.

  • Distraction from feeling of boredom / anxiety - notice the feeling arising and decide not to reach for the phone.

  • Distance from the world at our immediate proximity. Notice in what way it is distancing and decide what to do about it.

    • Line in the supermarket - using the phone prevents us from contact with people and the environment surrounding us.

    • Waiting in general - it prevents us from feeling bored and empty and therefore for random interactions and surprises to arise. Life happens in those surprises. Surprise means delight, means joy. For this to happen we need to give space to unexpected.


Action 1

Uninstalling Instagram from my phone, having it on a separate device that I always keep home.

Result

I noticed just how much time it takes. It’s a very easy source of entertainment. I still feel like posting out of home. I believe however it’s not so beneficial and therefore I stick to not doing it. The feeling gets so strong once I even installed Instagram again. Before using it however I relised what was happening and uninstalled it again : )


Action 2

Keep the home screen clean of applications - only use app library.

Result

I only use apps when I think about them. Have to deliberately search for each one to use it. It helps not going to unwanted applications. Keeps the home screen clean.


Action 3

Enable grayscale filter.

Result

Phone becomes different to use. Much less interesting. Much less stimulating. I still turn it on and off as sometimes I want to see the colors, but it becomes more deliberate. Using grayscale for the camera app changes the perspective.


Action 4

Remove notifications from all communication except for SMS and phone.

Result

I don't get interrupted by messages as much, except ones that might be of some urgency. I check messages whenever I have a natural break.


Action 5

Set up a timers to limit the number of interactions.

Result

When I notice I go to the phone too many times in a row, I'll set a timer, without any sound, for 30 minutes, to force myself not to check it. The timer stays on the home screen just to remind me when I want to check it that it's better to wait. I noticed after a few minutes I tend to forget about it and get focused on tasks at hand.


Future actions

  • Rethink every application on the phone.

  • Schedule times of the day/week away from the phone.

  • Research Instagram post scheduling solutions.

  • Instagram - I want to follow some accounts, but not see what Instagram wants me to see. Therefore a better way for now is just have a few links to accounts I like and let myself check their content once per day / every two days. Otherwise connect with my friends once per week maybe.

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