April 2025

Finding Peace With My Smartphone

A surprise to no one, and completely mundane, but I have been averaging 4.5 hours of screen time per day. With highs of over 8 hours and lows barely above 2 hours.

Like many a tech guru and college student alike have said, this is not good. 

Over the past two weeks, I have been able to get that number down to under 3 hours per day consistently. While that doesn’t sound like a huge improvement, it has had a disproportionally positive impact on my day-to-day life.

So, What’s the Diagnosis?

While there are a litany of YouTube videos, SubStack and Medium think pieces, and psychology literature on how to defang smartphones from our daily lives, most of it doesn’t work. Not for anyone, at least not in the long-term. (Yes, I am aware I am talking about an effect that has lasted only a few weeks so far). Life is hard. We have a litany of apps that can provide a serotonin-laden escape from the hellscape. A lot of the suggestions I have read/watched over the past month have been very focused on very specific mechanics (do this one thing) and rely too much of self-will. Which, if we had enough energy and self-will, we wouldn’t be in the mess in the first place. We are human. We aren’t going to give up a device that solves a lot of our problems, so our solutions should keep that in mind.

Here is my unfounded, unresearched take on why these solutions fail so often: smartphones are really useful and we lose out on important moments without them.

That’s it. So, the problem isn’t the smartphone itself, it’s the fact that they have the capacity to fulfill many of our needs – and then abuse that function.

So, instead of dreaming of a world without smartphones or trying to romanticize the world before the iPhone was released or convincing you to buy a dumbphone, iPod and a DSLR, I instead was curious to reflect on what about the smartphone felt good and useful, and what felt life-sucking. What does the smartphone enable and how does it get us to abuse our time?

Instagram, Girl, It Was Always You

When I look at my smartphone usage, I get a built-in breakdown of day, time, and then time by application. I think this is really important because in my model of smartphone usage, we should be using the smartphone for it is 1) good at and 2) can only be done on the phone itself. So, 7 hour usage day sounds bad, but if 3 hours were spent talking on WhatsApp with a close friend and another 2 hours were spent editing a photo collage, then I am happy with the time well spent.

After getting over the sticker shock of just the number of hours I was on my phone (still not over it and still embarrassed to tell anyone else in my life about it), I could assess what was the time well spent and where I wish I had the hour or two hours back in my life.

As a shock to no one, especially myself, the number one problem child was Instagram. 2.5 hours a day with consistency. I could delete Instagram – this would align with my ethics – but I have real, human connections that are made convenient and accessible because of Instagram and it’s not worth it to me to delete the app right now. I’ve already tested the patience of those closest to me by getting them on Signal (tytyty).

For any social/behavioral change, I believe in small, iterative steps to make the change you are looking for. I personally don’t have the motivation or energy day-to-day to survive on the sheer for my will. So, instead I ask if I can: get it below two hours per day and stop scrolling before bed. I feel that I could get to this goal simply with a level of mindfulness, but it was through trying to curb my useage that I found the real problem:

Unlock, Unlock, Unlock: Smartphone as Enabler

Another statistic my phone allows me to see if how many times I am unlocking my phone throughout the day. I thought this was innocuous, but it does come in handy in testing hypotheses about how my mind works.

Before I made the changes to my system (which I will quickly get to), I was unlocking my phone 100+ times per day. Usually around 80 with a high of ~140. Since I made the behavioral changes, I am closer to ~50 unlocks per day. That’s a more significant cut that my screen time.

What was a profound revelation for me is that I would open my phone to check something, like an Email, and then be sent down the app check-in rabbit hole. This was the source of the problem. I should be using my phone to go on Google Maps or to send photos to a friend, but that somehow always led me to checking my three messaging apps, or dating apps, and eventually (always) Instagram. To me, the issue stemmed from two things: first, boredom. I need to pass time on the bus or before a meeting. With my brain being too overworked to process reading (non)fiction and my attention span being decimated by short-form videos, I couldn’t imagine doing anything else. And two, anxiety. Having instant access to all the means of communication trained my into being constantly available (even if I set that constant availability to 8-5PM). It meant always knowing when ~news~ happened. Importantly, it embedded a fear is I didn’t know. If I wasn’t accessible.

I think it is important to note that I didn’t take the statistics and then use them to explain the problem. I spent a few weeks doing what I normally do and then jotting down when something felt good or bad while going through my daily flow. This let me find the actions or states of mind that I wanted/didn’t want and then go to the statistics to confirm if they were the issue or not. For example, my app usage and unlocks correlate to my issues, but my notifications do not. So, it’s super important to pay attention to the processes rather than the specific individual metric. You may find happiness in the number of hours, but instead shifting the apps you are using. The goal for me is to accept that smartphones exist and make sure my time spent with/on them is enabling good rather than doom/unwellness.

Get on With it, What Did You Do?

I made three substantial changes.

First, I liberally use the “pausing” feature on Android. If you long hold one of your apps, you can select an hourglass icon which allows you to effectively mute that application until the end of the day. So, no notifications, but still there in case of emergency. I have too many professional obligations to fully remove Slack or GMail from my phone, but when there isn’t an expectation of urgent response, then they can effectively not exist on my phone.

Second, and this is way more important, I practiced being okay with not knowing something and being unavailable. The first step only works because I am investing in being unavailable and therefore more physically present. It started with the weekends not checking my professional email. It was scary and anxiety inducing, but each day that passed I would log-in to see that the world hadn’t ended and I hadn’t missed a mission-critical email further emboldened my decision. Also, if I did miss something, it was well-worth the energy and anxiety I saved by being present and disconnected outside of work hours.

Third, I make my tech specific. I told myself that if I want to check my email, I can, but only if I open my laptop. This created enough friction that I simply was too lazy to act on it. I often check my emails as a fidget, so adding a few extra physical steps to find where my laptop was, probably charge it, and log-in was really effective at keeping me away. I think general purpose technology is really dangerous on our minds, so I have been trying to create mental associations with my different technology to keep me in the activity I’m opting into.

Last Reflections

So, that’s how I cut my screen time by roughly a third and my unlocks by roughly half.

I focused on my behaviors – how the smartphone enabled my fidgeting and anxiety and tried to add friction and other options to fill that time. It isn’t about spending all my time reading non-fiction or working out. It’s about moving from Instagram to a video game or a nap. I’m not invested in killing my tech ecosystem – I really love ‘puter – so I’m seeking a relationship with tech that continues on in a better way.

The interventions should be informed by what you are doing and how you are feeling about those actions, not the other way around. We tend not to stick to changes that we ourselves don’t buy into. These arbitrary solutions often aren’t solving the right problem anyways.

This was never about eliminating screen time. It was about being intentional with screen time. For instance, I love writing and only love to write on a keyboard, so if I am spending hours in front of a computer writing articles like this, I feel enriched and happy. Part of creating mental associations with technology was also about redirecting from Instagram to my Steam Deck, so I can keep crushing through my backlog, which in turn lets me update my video game opinions blog. Plus, when I’m happy I am more likely to take walks and cook really good food.

I fundamentally believe happy people choose healthy decisions, so any iteration toward happiness is a step toward good health!