Thank you for this post! I totally resonate with it all! I’m going to follow in your footsteps and make Instagram an iPad only app. I’ve tried many different ways to reduce my time on it (apps to limit it, only using it on safari etc!) and I’ve been meaning to delete from my phone and have it on my iPad only for a while. I also rant about phone usage/addiction to my husband 😂 but i am a victim of it as well!
Haha Clare, glad it’s not just me who rants and raves about this stuff! Glad it was a useful post, I debated posting it thinking I had nothing new to say on the subject but hopefully it just shows that we’re not alone 😊 x
You’re very like me! I do have LinkedIn on my phone as I’m trying to change job but I’ve realised I don’t think it’s helping me, so I’m going to delete that today.
I have a Kindle to save my marriage, I read to help with my insomnia and rather than have the light on which wakes my husband I have the Kindle. I don’t know how to use the store and refuse to learn 😆 It’s also easier for me to get English books as I live in Spain. However, I do love a physical book, seeing the physical progress and the smell 💕
I have two smart speakers and I find they help reduce my screen time! I use it for an alarm, timers, music or podcasts. It means I don’t have to pick up my phone and get distracted by notifications.
Phone sleeps downstairs without me and it’s often 11 am before I even look at it these days.
I have Facebook and Instagram but only on my laptop and I have unfollowed people on Facebook too! I also do regular friend culls.
I don’t watch or listen to the news at all. If I hear about something I’ll research myself in a way I feel comfortable. I listen to podcasts that cover main events but sandwiched with comedy, I find it much less triggering.
I love podcasts but also noticed I’m a completist. So I’ve now learned that if I’m not that interested in an episode I mark it as I’ve listened to it, that little green tick ✅ is enough to satisfy me.
I read recently Digital Minimalism: Chosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World. It’s nice to be connecting with people or reading about people who are doing the same as me! It feels rebellious in a world where we’re expected to be contactable 24 hours a day 7 days a week. 💕
Oh Kindles are SO helpful for the insomnia and not keeping a partner awake! I do agree with you there. I think Kindles are low impact on the digital burden - and if it helps us read more, that’s a good thing really! Where do you live in Spain, as an aside? I lived in Zaragoza for a bit and loved it. 🥰 It’s so interesting your use of a smart speaker, Sheila. I never thought of it like that. I’m with you on the podcasts and being a completist - this is me as well! Also LOVE that Cal Newport books - so good. 😊 x
I wish I didn’t have a Kindle but another ebook that doesn’t have advertisements for books and that. But I can ignore them and as you said they’re low digital burden.
I’m in the sunny South, in Andalusia. I lived a year in Barcelona too. I’ve not been to Zaragoza yet! Where are you settled now?
Yeah, I didn’t realise the start speaker become that for me! 💕💚
I’ve heard from family it’s been very wet! 🌧️ We’ve had very changeable weather with a bit of rain, thankfully, but of course the sun ☀️ I’ll try and send some to yous!
Great post - I resonate with the soapbox being an 80s kid! Life was simpler and I think better then for kids. I think the FB top of unfollowing friends is good I will start there I think. Thanks for writing this, I just subscribed.
Thanks for your lovely comment! I'm also an 80s child so I definitely look back at pre-internet days and sometimes think it was better. Also being a teenager before social media or anything like that was BLISS! Thanks for subscribing by the way, that's very kind of you :)
What a thought provoking post. anything phone related in my life is a constant exercise of trying to find ways of breaking this damn addiction I didn’t ask for! In every other part of my life I function very well but the minute I pick up my phone I’m sucked in, and I hate it. We’ll all get there in the end, surely they’ll run their course and in 10 years we’ll all have gone back to landlines and a phone on the wall…. like in the best decade ever, the 80s!!
Thanks Wendy! Oh to only have landlines again. I love what you said - that we didn’t ask for this addiction, it’s just been thrust upon us and now we have to work to backtrack. It’s a definite work in progress though (I’m writing this reply on my phone right now 🙈!). Thanks for reading x
Thank you for this post! I totally resonate with it all! I’m going to follow in your footsteps and make Instagram an iPad only app. I’ve tried many different ways to reduce my time on it (apps to limit it, only using it on safari etc!) and I’ve been meaning to delete from my phone and have it on my iPad only for a while. I also rant about phone usage/addiction to my husband 😂 but i am a victim of it as well!
Haha Clare, glad it’s not just me who rants and raves about this stuff! Glad it was a useful post, I debated posting it thinking I had nothing new to say on the subject but hopefully it just shows that we’re not alone 😊 x
You’re very like me! I do have LinkedIn on my phone as I’m trying to change job but I’ve realised I don’t think it’s helping me, so I’m going to delete that today.
I have a Kindle to save my marriage, I read to help with my insomnia and rather than have the light on which wakes my husband I have the Kindle. I don’t know how to use the store and refuse to learn 😆 It’s also easier for me to get English books as I live in Spain. However, I do love a physical book, seeing the physical progress and the smell 💕
I have two smart speakers and I find they help reduce my screen time! I use it for an alarm, timers, music or podcasts. It means I don’t have to pick up my phone and get distracted by notifications.
Phone sleeps downstairs without me and it’s often 11 am before I even look at it these days.
I have Facebook and Instagram but only on my laptop and I have unfollowed people on Facebook too! I also do regular friend culls.
I don’t watch or listen to the news at all. If I hear about something I’ll research myself in a way I feel comfortable. I listen to podcasts that cover main events but sandwiched with comedy, I find it much less triggering.
I love podcasts but also noticed I’m a completist. So I’ve now learned that if I’m not that interested in an episode I mark it as I’ve listened to it, that little green tick ✅ is enough to satisfy me.
I read recently Digital Minimalism: Chosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World. It’s nice to be connecting with people or reading about people who are doing the same as me! It feels rebellious in a world where we’re expected to be contactable 24 hours a day 7 days a week. 💕
Oh Kindles are SO helpful for the insomnia and not keeping a partner awake! I do agree with you there. I think Kindles are low impact on the digital burden - and if it helps us read more, that’s a good thing really! Where do you live in Spain, as an aside? I lived in Zaragoza for a bit and loved it. 🥰 It’s so interesting your use of a smart speaker, Sheila. I never thought of it like that. I’m with you on the podcasts and being a completist - this is me as well! Also LOVE that Cal Newport books - so good. 😊 x
I wish I didn’t have a Kindle but another ebook that doesn’t have advertisements for books and that. But I can ignore them and as you said they’re low digital burden.
I’m in the sunny South, in Andalusia. I lived a year in Barcelona too. I’ve not been to Zaragoza yet! Where are you settled now?
Yeah, I didn’t realise the start speaker become that for me! 💕💚
Now in the not-so-sunny Oxfordshire back in the UK. Spring seems to have missed us out so far! 🥴
I’ve heard from family it’s been very wet! 🌧️ We’ve had very changeable weather with a bit of rain, thankfully, but of course the sun ☀️ I’ll try and send some to yous!
Great post - I resonate with the soapbox being an 80s kid! Life was simpler and I think better then for kids. I think the FB top of unfollowing friends is good I will start there I think. Thanks for writing this, I just subscribed.
Thanks for your lovely comment! I'm also an 80s child so I definitely look back at pre-internet days and sometimes think it was better. Also being a teenager before social media or anything like that was BLISS! Thanks for subscribing by the way, that's very kind of you :)
What a thought provoking post. anything phone related in my life is a constant exercise of trying to find ways of breaking this damn addiction I didn’t ask for! In every other part of my life I function very well but the minute I pick up my phone I’m sucked in, and I hate it. We’ll all get there in the end, surely they’ll run their course and in 10 years we’ll all have gone back to landlines and a phone on the wall…. like in the best decade ever, the 80s!!
Thanks Wendy! Oh to only have landlines again. I love what you said - that we didn’t ask for this addiction, it’s just been thrust upon us and now we have to work to backtrack. It’s a definite work in progress though (I’m writing this reply on my phone right now 🙈!). Thanks for reading x
I agree with you on all points. I think you'd like my digital minimalism series: https://neurodivergentnotes.substack.com/t/the-diaries