Your Phone Is Stupid, and It's Making You Stupid 📱😱
I interrupt my regularly scheduled programming for this rant…
In a few years we are going to look back at our relationship with phones, and consider it barbaric. We are in denial about this. We make excuses constantly.
Almost every client I work with needs to make promises regarding how they use their phone. To be very blunt, the phone is evil and it does evil things to you. And you, like a lemming, comply.
After all, everyone else is doing it too. 😞
Feel free to change your habits forever just from reading this post.
Tell me if you relate to any of these statements:
“I got sucked into my phone, I don’t know where the time went.”
“My eyes and body hurt at the end of the day from being on my phone.”
“I don’t feel good after I get off social media.”
Let’s start with the physical problems…
As of the last decade, it is possible to sit or stand at a desk and not harm your body. You could use a big monitor at eye level, so you weren’t looking down. You could place a detachable keyboard where your arms and hands naturally fall. You could prop your back and feet so they felt comfortable, or even work while standing the entire time. You could work 8-10 hours a day without straining and hurting your body.
You can still do this! We’re old enough to remember when these things weren’t ubiquitous, that things don’t always have to be this way-- as an omnipresent element of everyone’s everyday life.
This is me at my desk…notice all the ways I support my well-being. This is not because I am a pretty pretty princess, it is because I want to last! I have a mission, and my physical well-being is crucial to that mission being fulfilled. What about you?
Are you spending any part of your day like this?
If you are spending any significant portion of your day hunched over, staring at tiny print, and ruining your thumb joints (does anyone type faster on a 3 inch keyboard, really?), you are being unkind to your body.
If your job or finances means you’re outside all the time and/or don’t have access to a desk and a computer/bigger screen, I get it, you need to be in communication on your phone. In your case, I am saying, you can–and must–set limits. Just as strong boundaries are a necessary element of healthy relationships, it’s essential to place limits on the parts of our lives that are necessary but hurt us when we spend too much time in them.
For the rest of you: when you can, text on your computer instead of your phone; set your desks up to work for your body; make sure the size of everything and the brightness of your screen cause no eye strain; take frequent breaks for your eyes and your body. Stop hurting yourself just because everyone does.
My goodness, we used to wear corsets!! In some places, foot-binding was a status symbol!! But then we stopped!
Most phones made in the past few years have “digital well-being” functionality, which let you set your own limits on how much you use specific apps each day, and can desaturate the color from your screen at night.
There are now multiple apps for your desktop/laptop computers which use your webcam to monitor your posture, and alert you when you slouch. Some examples of them are SitApp, SlouchCam, and Zen.
There are also many apps for desktops/laptops which you can use to self-track how much time you’re spending on websites you know are bad for you; some will even block your access for you, after a predetermined length of time, or window each day, which you set up for yourself.
Now about that toxic content…
It is my belief that whatever you focus on amplifies in your life. Thoughts become things. The thoughts and ideas you fill your head with literally shape your feelings, mood, and life. It’s as important to monitor the content you consume as it is to monitor the food you consume. And some of it is poison.
Poisonous content makes you feel bad, and slowly makes you sick.
Please take a moment to think about how much content you’ve already consumed today. If it uplifted you, and put you into action towards your dreams, yay! Keep reading/listening to that stuff. If it made you feel powerless, jealous, or “less than enough,” STOP CONSUMING IT!
Just stop it.
I am serious. If you found out your morning coffee always came with poison in it, you’d switch brands immediately. Even if it was just a small amount of a cumulative poison, like arsenic, which doesn’t hurt you at any one time that you ingest a little of it, but accumulates in your body to cause damage that can eventually be lethal.
I am not saying quit content, or coffee: I am saying make sure you know what’s in it, how your body and mind respond, and drink it responsibly!
It is a well known fact: social media is addictive, by design.
The major problem with addictions, generally, is that they rob us of our dreams. We literally cannot focus on our dreams when an addiction is active.
If you are in an active phone addiction, your relationship to self will erode. You will be less effective at work. And, apropos of my usual topic, you will become less and less connected with the real people around you.
Here are resources that can help when you discover you have a true addiction.
How to Break a Phone Addiction Without Quitting Cold Turkey - The Atlantic
Do Not Disturb: How I Ditched My Phone and Unbroke My Brain
How to Break a Phone Addiction - The New York Times
Most of my clients, however, find simple promises and consequences work here. For example: Limit your consumption to x minutes a day, or else no consumption the next day. Or, only get on an app if you can write down your specific purpose for being there; if you break that promise, go for a 30-minute walk with no phone.
Legitimate reasons for phone usage:
to build brand awareness for your business
to reach out and connect with loved ones
to make plans
to find information you will use specifically
to learn about something important to you
to zone out and relax (if so, do this intentionally, by setting a timer and stopping when it goes off)
If you have other purposes you wanna run by me, leave a comment below.
The point is: you own the phone. The phone doesn’t own you. Capiche?
What promises and consequences do you need to make life better for you and your loved ones? Design one right now and tell the people you interact with the most so they can hold you to it.
Please share this post with anyone and everyone who needs to read it. Have your friends and family sign up for my newsletter.
I promise to keep encouraging you to be the best, most present, love-activists on planet earth. Goodness knows we need that!
