If you’re like me, you reach for your phone without even thinking about it far too often, mindlessly switching between apps, distracted by the latest photo, video or micro writing. I can’t remember whose article I was reading, but some guy mentioned that one of the best things he ever did was take his wife’s advice to remove his Facebook app from his phone. I didn’t reach for my phone straight away, but it didn’t take me long before I found myself mindlessly scrolling through my Facebook feed, so I decided to take it off.
Facebook isn’t an app I save many stories, thats something I do on Medium and Twitter a lot. But I tend to just end up with a bunch of articles I bookmark or favourite and never really get round to reading. With Facebook off my phone, I still got hugely distracted by these other apps, and while I thought it was harmless, I realised I was holding up people wanting to use gym equipment I was on, while I was fiddling with my phone between sets. So I made a conscious decision to remove Medium. But I was not ready to say cheers to Twitter, it’s my realtime news, how could I possibly remove that?
A couple of irate tweets later, I realised that I have another bad habit, besides favouriting tweets I want to read later and never do, I tend to tweet on the fly and post stuff with little or no thought. Thats risky stuff, so I decided to take Twitter off my phone.
Instinctively I still reach for my phone, but with Instagram being the only social network I still have on the device, I tend to spend less time looking down and it has not only allowed me to be less distracted, but it is saving my battery life. I will confess that I spend most of my day in front of at least one screen or another, and I certainly still visit these sites (I am experimenting with not using Facebook at all, however thats a future post) and I still use apps like Instagram, but still this is a small victory, I really do reach for my phone a lot less.