My tuppence worth on smartphone [over] usage in modern society

It’s like walking into another room and forgetting what you came in for, but on your phone, and forever. So, stop it!

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It didn’t occur to me to share my thoughts on the topic of mobile phone addiction before now. I mean, what hasn’t been said about it? We all know it’s a problem but don’t know how to transform those ingrained usage habits. and changed my view on how the tides are turning, so I’d like to share my experiences and perspective on this move back to reality.

I don’t have all the answers, all I can share are my experiences.

I am an old millennial.

I am at the tail end of the generation, so I remember a lot of the 1980s cartoons that young millennials might not remember. 15 years for a generation seems a bit long and should perhaps be 7 years in my opinion. The difference between starting secondary school to leaving is a huge gap in time and I can’t relate so much to people who are 10-14 years younger than me. For example, when I mention Jeremy Beadle to them I get a blank look, but if you say to anyone over 38 in England “Jeremey Beadle” they’ll either reply “Small hand!” or “Watch out! Beadle’s About!”. One colleague who was 25 said he’d never seen an Arnold Schwarzenegger film, the look on MY face!

Ah, another example came to mind. There was a strong divide in my team at work regarding whether they preferred the UK (superior) or the US version (inferior) of The Office. Everyone under 35 said they liked the US version best (boo) and the oldies over 35 said the UK version was way better (truth).

Before I go into the smartphone stuff, I just stumbled across this official-looking chart explaining the generations of the past 100 years. Have a look, you little nerd.

A visual representation like this is pleasing to the eye, it puts everyone in these neat boxes so we can be easily predicted and marketed to. Makes me wonder who made these up?! Was it a marketing ploy?

Bear with me, I will get to a point sometime today…

So, as an old millennial, I am part of the last generation who remembers life before the internet. I have strong nostalgia vibes about my childhood, going out for hours, playing in streams, rolling old tyres down hills and playing NES games for hours on end.

That said, I’m still addicted to my smartphone. I got my first iPhone in 2007, The hungry birds were my best friend, it got me through my dialysis treatment for 4 hours at a time, 3 days per week. I was 26 at the time, not super young, but young enough to get addicted to this new wonderful device that connected little old shy me to the rest of the world. It was a lifeline in those days, it connected me via Meetup.com where I hosted events for shy people in London. I could connect with new people all over the world. It was a modern marvel when it was shiny and new!

Then 15 years later, I’m bald, I’m 60 pounds overweight and I’m scrolling for hours per day trying to find something that’s not there. And it’s all Steve Jobs’ fault! Joking, I love Steve.

Jokes aside, I’m aware that it has become a big problem for me, the awareness I’ve brought to it since Alex and Tom’s wonderful posts (I’ll link to them at the end) has helped me notice what I am habitually doing on my phone.

For instance, this evening I did the whole Instagram, Facebook, Gmail and WhatsApp loop. I’m at home, my daughter is asleep next to me, ready for bed and if I deeply think about this, IT’S FUCKING MADNESS! “What am I doing?” I caught myself, laughed and carried on writing this post. I felt much better about producing something rather than trying to consume digital thin air.

I don’t want to compare it to this because it’s a sad memory, but when my dad was in a care home for people with Alzheimer’s, he and others would walk around for hours searching for something but couldn’t quite put their finger on what it was. So, so sad to witness. This is unconstructive smartphone usage, smartphone addiction even. It’s a bit like when I eat crisps to feel better after a stressful day, I’m internally promised that it’ll make it all better, but no matter how many crisps I eat, I just end up feeling sad and sick.

Back the to social media loop I was talking about before. If I really stop and think about that behaviour, what is the thinking behind it? I’m longing for connection, or at the very least, a bit of dopamine to simulate connection. I check my emails to see if any art opportunities have magically appeared in my inbox, or even sadly, getting anything I can reply to, to feel like I’ve completed a task! “Ooh, the Parish Council have contacted me on my non-cultivation of my allotment, I can reply words to them.”

It’s chronic fucking insanity!

Let me say that again In another way.

Spending hours on your phone with no direction is chronic fucking insanity.

I just had a strong recollection of wasting an inordinate amount of time on Vine back in 2013. I had a lot of sadness and anxiety back then, so I scrolled through for hours, getting little hits of relief. Then I wanted to be Vine famous after that to feel worthy but my videos were crap. When I read that last paragraph back, I guess it did give me some kind of relief, but I could’ve done something more productive to get help.

I imagine the youth of today totally wrecked from their ‘from birth’ phone usage, but I don’t really know if that’s the case. Maybe it’s like me growing up with a house phone, I didn’t use that 8 hours per day. My dad would’ve killed me as that would have cost him £48 per day at 10p per minute. That was a lot in 1995! It’s a lot now.

So let’s forget about the youth and get us adults sorted first.

The smartphone is still a marvellous tool, but sadly ‘Big Social’ has got us using it in an addictive way. We can’t blame them wholeheartedly though, we need to take responsibility for what we do next.

Life isn’t black and white, but I see two clear routes to solve this issue:

Route 1: Get rid of your smartphone, go back to using a Nokia 3310 and just use your laptop like it’s 2005 again. My friend Adam has done this, and he feels amazing, he lives off-grid and only uses his laptop a few times a week to send emails and connect with people online, he must travel to an internet café, I mean, café to connect to the online world. (It’s funny how my brain went back to 2003 when I used to frequent internet cafes to apply for jobs and ‘surf’ the world wide web).

Route 2: This is my preferred route, really think about what you want to use your phone for and what you need to use your phone for. We need a bigger possibility to step into. We can use apps like Freedom to block sites and all that, but it’s like taking painkillers for the headache of someone who eats a lot of sugar. It’s just masking the issue.

We’re hooked on our phones, what possibility can you create to replace that need?

I’ll go first…

What do I need my smartphone for?

Mobile banking (could use a laptop but mobile banking is useful for emergencies)
Two-factor authentication on websites (could use text on an old phone)
Reading Substacks
Writing notes (no reason why it can’t be offline)
Apple Pay (could start carrying my cards with me)
Checking crypto wallet (could do on laptop)
WhatsApp has become a utility, unfortunately, or fortunately depending on how you look at it. So I keep in touch with all my friends and family there.

What do I want to use my smartphone for? (Ideal scenario)

Ok, let’s really think about this.

I do enjoy writing notes on my phone, so I’m happy to use that for writing drafts and ideas down, it’s just so much easier than manual not taking, but will use that for other purposes.
I like using apps to frame my artwork, and to take photos of art pieces, whether my own or others.
I like reading Substack so I’ll keep that. That includes connecting with peeps in the comments and notes.
I like reading books on Kindle, if only we could read Substack on Kindle hmmm 🤔

So thinking about my ideal scenario, I would only check my phone of a day if I were doing any of the above. Sounds simple, so the thing that’s ruining me is the need to check everything.

So, let’s Re-delete the Meta apps (apart from WhatsApp). Ok, done.

Next, what do I want?

A full-time professional, art career. So I can’t waste time flipping between apps and scrolling to find that illusory thing. I have limited time as I spend 45 hours working and commuting.

When I find myself doing anything unproductive on my phone, apart from reading of course, then I will remind myself of “Art Career” and stop, then put my focus on something more useful.

Do you see how insidious this is?

After writing the previous paragraph, I felt stuck on what to write next, so what did I do? I typed in Gmail into my browser and looked at my email. I quickly said “Art Career” in my head, closed the tab, and laughed, all in 1 second, in my mind.

Do you see how mad this is?

I just did it again! I stopped writing for a second, then picked up my smartphone again, checked Gmail “Art Career!” closed it, and laughed again.

Mad, mad, mad.

Imagine explaining all of this to our grandparents when they were our age now. They’d think we were mad, they just did their job (for life), went down the pub, they lived their lives. Of course, it wasn’t perfect, they generally lived at their station and didn’t have the awesome opportunities we have now, but were content on the whole.

Stop. Be. Here. Now.

Breathe…

Ok, let’s finish this post off…

I just did it again.

To finish this post…

We carry upon our person, a pocket-sized computer, that is more powerful than any supercomputer ever created pre-2000*, which cost the government millions upon millions of pounds and weighed tonnes in weight. A device that takes amazing photos, where you can read nearly any book you want, listen to any song you wish, or watch any movie. You can buy almost anything you wish and get it delivered to your home the day after or even the same day! You have a scanner, a calculator, and a notepad, to start your car, change your TV channel, measure stuff, monitor your heart rate, travel on a train, bus, tube, or plane, store credit and debit cards, navigate yourself anywhere, you can talk to your phone, take voice notes, utilise AI, and play video games. Then on top of that, you can use automation to connect various apps and actions, connect to your lights at home, your doorbell, your baby cam, turn your heating on when you arrive outside your home…

But instead, I scroll through social media and waste my time.

Let’s become the masters of our devices, let’s get the power back!

Master this amazing device and you are the master of your universe!