It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone when I say that our society is too addicted to our phones, but the thought that it might be affecting your quality of life could catch you off guard.
My phone (and I’m sure many of yours if you have an iPhone) gives me a weekly update about how many hours per day I spend on it, and it blows me away every time I see it. My screen time generally falls somewhere between 1 1/2 and 2 1/2 hours per day. I actually feel like i’m on the lower end of the spectrum for phone use (I’ve tried to cut back), but even then, that’s a substantial part of my waking life. It’s not like i’m doing anything incredibly important either *cue the mindless scrolling through Instagram*.
Sometimes I’ll be Googling a recipe for dinner or “How to start a blog” or something else that’s actually relevant to my life, but let’s be honest… It’s normally Instagram, Trivia Crack, Snapchat or texting. And I feel like many of you share this addiction with me.
All this time on the phone could be affecting your life negatively and here’s why.
Life Should Be Experienced, Not Observed
Every second that we spend on our phones is a second that we’re not involved, and actively appreciating our lives. Even the boring parts of life should be appreciated, because in those dull, mind numbingly drab moments are when your creativity muscles are exercised and your imagination is sharpened.
I recently started cutting back on my cell phone use when one day, a thought came into my head. I couldn’t remember the last time that I was legitimately bored, and it’s because there is an ocean of stimulation at my finger tips, just waiting to be explored.
The growth of technology over recent years is nothing short of incredible, but with great power comes great responsibility. The responsibility to keep enjoying the moments that make us human. The lunches with our loved ones, the awkward eye contact with the other people in the elevator, the nerve wracking experience of approaching that cute girl at the bar (I’m looking at you Tinder).
These moments are what make life what it is. Exciting. Scary. Boring. Sad. Happy. Every day is a dice roll and you never know what number will come up, but one thing life shouldn’t be, is monotone. That monotone feeling of scrolling through Instagram for hours, (or at least until you’ve reach a post you’ve already seen) and not remembering a single thing that you’ve looked at. This whole time, not having used your brain for anything, and not experiencing any mental growth. Ninety percent of the posts that are seen are scrolled past after being looked at for 1/1000th of a second before deciding it’s not worth the time.
To me, this is no way to live life. I consider every minute that I scroll through my timeline to be time that was wasted and I will never get back. But it’s hard to cut out completely. It truly does seem like an addiction. An addiction to stimulation. An escape from boredom, and stress, and thought.
You See The Best Part Of Everyone Else’s Life
There’s no better way to feel down about your life than to have your brain flooded by all the amazing things that other people are doing.
You scroll through your Instagram or Facebook and what are people posting? Pictures of themselves out at bars drinking with friends, with a huge smile on their face. Or they’re at a beach on vacation, or just had a baby, or are getting married. All of these activities are celebrated, and rightfully so, but you rarely see pictures of people sitting in traffic on their way to work, or in the waiting room at the dentists office, or sitting at work counting down the hours until they clock out.
But this is what life generally consists of. A lot of mundane activities that realistically can only be made less mundane by the power of our mind or through conversation and interacting with the world around us, and when we spend all of our time brainlessly looking at data, these muscles that power our creativity, imagination and conversation start to atrophy.
When you see all of these people living such seemingly eventful and carefree lives, it makes the mundane parts of ours seem like there is something out of place. Like we’ve made some wrong decision and could be living such a different life full of beaches and rainbows but the reality is that for the most part, all of our lives are a compilation of events. Some exciting, some amazing, some rewarding and many more that are just your daily life. Routine and uneventful. But that’s OK. That’s life.
You Forfeit The Opportunity To Meet New People
I truly believe that being bored is good for people. Not all the time, just a regular amount of the time, and for more reasons than just honing your thinking skills. It will force you to interact with the world around you.
Do you ever notice how it always seems to be the old guys that strike up conversation with you out of nowhere? It’s rarely that guy or gal in their mid-twenties who just randomly starts being super casual with you. This is because they came from a generation where pretty much all of their stimulation came from talking to people.
In the past you couldn’t just be entertained at the drop of the hat. You had to search for entertainment. That’s why when you’re awkwardly sitting in the meat locker that is a gym sauna, the guy in his fifties wearing nothing but a towel the size of a loin cloth will do more than just give you a head nod when you make eye contact. He’s actually interested in meeting you (I don’t have much experience with the same situation in a girls locker room but will assume that it’s similar).
Same thing goes for when you’re at a bar. I remember being at a sports bar watching the NCAA National Championship game this year and there was one guy sitting alone at the actual bar (not at a table), in probably his mid-fifties. Over the course of about two hours, we saw this guy strike up conversation with probably 3-4 different couples.
At the time, it seemed odd to see someone dive into a full-blown conversation with the people next to him, whom he barely knew. But the more I though about it, that’s the way things should be. Rather than just exchanging pleasantries (“Hi, how’s it going?” “Good, you?” “Good”) and leaving it at that, we should be getting to know the people around us. Almost every great experience in life his enhanced by the company of loved ones, so let’s try and broaden our circle, for the random person sitting next to you at the bar could end up being your best friend, the love of your life, or an amazing new job opportunity.
Now that we know the importance of putting down the phone, let’s talk about how to do this and be realistic.
Keep Your Phone In Your Pocket When You’re Out
Simon Sinek, an author and motivational speaker who focuses on how to enhance your life and happiness, has a segment where he talks about some of the problems Millennial’s face. While I don’t agree with everything that he says, he has a good solution to the phone dilemma.
He talks about how when him and his buddies go out, they leave their phones at home. Maybe one of them will bring a phone so that their spouses and families have a way of reaching them if they really have to, but for the most part they are off the grid.
I don’t think that you need to keep your phone at home, but try keeping it in your pocket when you’re out doing something with friends. And put it on silent. Try, for the night, not to bring it out. Even when your friends may be on theirs. When your friends see you sitting there, not on your phone, even when conversation has slowed down, I can bet that they will be more likely to get off of their phones and interact. We all have that urge to whip out our phones when other people are doing the same. You feel awkward sitting there twiddling your thumbs or staring off at the distance, but it let’s people know that you’re looking for more than just staring at your phone.
I’m not saying that every group that goes out is just on their phone the whole time, but you see it a lot. Especially with couples. We all know the couple, sitting there staring at their phones while they’re getting a meal. These activities used to be called “dates”. You’d go out with your girlfriend, or boyfriend, and enjoy a meal together. The whole purpose of a restaurant (other than to eat good food) is to put you face-to-face with the person across from you and talk.
This is the reason that when you go to Europe, you see people sitting at restaurants for hours and the waiter doesn’t bring the bill or try to turn your table over quickly. Eating is a social experience and should ignite conversation. Without phones, how awkward would it be to sit at a table with a group of people and say nothing to each other? With a phone though, it’s no problem, because you are all occupied by the screen.
When you go to a concert, how many people do you see filming the experience? Or at a firework show, or a parade, or a party. Basically any giant social gathering with some sort of entertainment. These people are on the other side of the glass from what I was talking about earlier. Posting their experience on Snapchat or some other social media, while their followers envy their attending whatever event they’re at. But when you are filming an event, are you really experiencing it?
I love the scene in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty when Sean Penn’s character is up in the Himalayas watching a Snow Leopard. He sits there, with the legendary, rarely photographed cat in the cross-hairs of his camera, all primed up to take an epic photo, but he never takes it. Walter Mitty asks him why he hasn’t taken the picture and his next words are beautiful and should be lived by.
“Sometimes I don’t, If I like a moment, for me, personally, I don’t like to have the distraction of the camera. I just want to stay in it.” – Sean O’Connell
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