The beauty in putting your phone down in the age of technology
By Kara Zagoren
How cool would it be to not be on your phone ? When sitting at a table, your phone is not only down, but out of sight, tucked away, and untouched for the duration of your time there. During a conversation you don’t feel the need to look down and check the reasoning behind the periodic vibration. When you have a pending task, you don’t tell yourself “just five more minutes” before you have to stop scrolling and focus. Being present is a dying courtesy that desperately needs revival while being purely productive seems to be a luxury that none of us have. Here’s what you can do to break the cycle and leave your phone behind.
It’s so often that we pick up our phones out of habit and mindlessly scroll when we feel like there is nothing to do. These habitual pick ups add up over time, so much so that the average person picks up their phone over 200 times a day. This has a tremendous effect on your ability to focus. It takes the average person 25 minutes to regain focus after being distracted, and with a phone by your side, distractions are constant. With what feels like an endless amount of screens surrounding us at all times, the thought of cutting down on media consumption feels overwhelming and nearly impossible. Luckily, there are a multitude of things that can be done in order to lower your screentime and combat the issues that come with phone-caused distractions.
These remedies start with you. Being cognizant that your phone is a massive distraction and choosing not to go on it is the main component of limiting phone usage. The next time you reach for your phone, ask yourself, “Why am I going on my phone, is my reasoning necessary?” This adds contemplation behind a normally mindless action, which ultimately eliminates unnecessary pick- ups.
The next thing you can do is leave the phone behind. Our phones don’t always need to be in our hands or even our pockets. This can be as simple as leaving your phone in your bedroom while cooking dinner, or as far as leaving your phone at home while you go on a walk outside. Lose the fear of disconnecting once in a while and don’t concern yourself with the abundance of “what if’s” that come with leaving your phone behind. Trust me, you don’t need your phone as badly as you think you do.
Other than enacting your own self-discipline there are some smaller things that help with lessening your screen time. Putting downtime on your phone allows you to shut off certain apps after a certain hour. Not going on your phone first thing in the morning or before you go to bed helps with productivity and sleep quality. removing your phone from your field of vision while studying. Studies show that being able to see a device decreases focus and leads to more breaks. Try putting it in your phone in your bag rather than face down on the table.
I challenge you to see how much you can cut your phone out of your daily routine. Try it for one day, think about why you are about to use your phone before you unlock it and see how often you might set it back down. See how present you can be during a conversation with your roommate, maybe watch a full movie without checking your phone during boring bits, or even try putting your phone away during your least favorite lecture that you typically play candy crush all the way through. It’s quite refreshing to look up from your screen once in a while. I really recommend it.
Happy Valley Comm 