Time for a confession. I have been writing here for three weeks — I’m sharing essays about my journey reshaping my relationship with technology, I’m slinging advice left and right on Reddit, and I’m posting Notes about digital minimalism and social media detoxes. I’ve been making changes in my personal life for almost five months now.
And yet, I’m arguably still addicted to my phone.
My mindset has shifted. I feel motivated and invigorated. My anxiety has dropped significantly.
And yet, my daily phone pick-ups average was staggering this week (133).
And yet, I’m still reaching for my phone to numb my mind.
And yet, I feel just as far away from the relationship I want to have with my phone, as I did 5 months ago.
I’ve recently been reading Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport. Newport recommends making swift cuts to your digital habits — first determining what is essential, then cutting the rest for 30 days. After 30 days, he recommends continuing with most things cut, only layering back in if you find it’s something truly valuable. He argues that you shouldn’t take your time with the progress – rip the band aid of your reliance on tech.
I understand his approach, and I suppose for some people it might really work. Well, for Newport’s cohort it was quite effective, this New York Times article features some of the participant’s success stories. I have been taking a slower approach, trying to peel back the layers of my habits one by one. In some ways, I do feel fairly confident in this method. I know it’s not as simple as just cutting things cold turkey. There’s some deep rooted habits and maybe personality traits that I need to face head-on. My patience with my progress does wear thin though some days.
Another argument Newport makes in the book is that to really make these changes, you have to take on the philosophy of digital minimalism – meaning you must let it be a key tenet of your values, your self. Newport defines digital minimalism as “a philosophy of technology use in which you focus your online time on a small number of carefully selected and optimized activities that strongly support things you value, and then happily miss out on everything else.” So to take on Newport’s advice, you must reshape your own deep rooted values to support the changes you want to make.
Now this does ring true to me. It reminds me of a line in Atomic Habits. James Clear says:
“The ultimate form of intrinsic motivation is when a habit becomes part of your identity. It’s one thing to say I’m the type of person who wants this. It’s something very different to say I’m the type of person who is this.”
My dad used this technique when he began embarking on a health journey. A naturally large man, while he was plating his dinner or ordering a meal at a restaurant, he would repeat the line “I’m a skinny person.” We all laughed. His natural stature will never allow him to be traditionally “skinny.” He stuck to this habit though and lost a commendable amount of weight. He recently began repeating, “I’m an active person,” as he wakes in the morning and gets ready for his long, daily walks.
Clear continues in Atomic Habits, “Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become. No single instance will transform your beliefs, but as the votes build up, so does the evidence of your new identity.”
It’s time to move some votes into the other column.
Here’s a state of affairs — how my habits are stacking up as of today, and where I hope to improve in the coming months.
Bye bye social media
In June, I deleted the Instagram, Reddit, and Facebook apps. I don’t use the other common offenders – TikTok, X, Snapchat, or YouTube. Despite Instagram being my biggest time waster six months ago, this was actually the easiest to cut. At first, I logged in maybe once a week to check my messages, but now I probably only check in once or twice a month, never for more than 5 minutes, and usually just to grab an old recipe I had saved.
On the other hand, I still found myself logging in on my phone browser to scroll on Reddit and Facebook – at first it was a few times a week, then it became a daily habit, and finally, by the end of the summer, multiple times a day. This was a major backslide for me.
One step I have considered is deleting my accounts all together, specifically for Facebook and Instagram (You can still access nearly all of Reddit without logging in, so deleting my account is moot). I guess I’m not ready for this yet. Before having kids, my Facebook remained inactive for nearly 5 years, but it’s a popular tool among parents, schools, and recreational groups. As for Instagram, I guess a part of me still thinks it’s a good way to see what everyone is up to. Even though I don’t log in often, it is where people post their birth announcements and big family news. It’s the way our culture communicates. Am I ready to say goodbye to that?
I’ve also been contemplating if I should start playing around with some of the app blocking tools that are out there – keep my Facebook and Reddit use to my laptop only. Frankly, I’ve been avoiding this path purely because I’m overwhelmed by all the options out there. It’s probably worth a try, and likely information that would be helpful for this community, so I think this is my next step.
I did read a good hack for Facebook in Digital Minimalism. If I can manage to curtail my phone usage, then on my desktop, I can bookmark the specific Facebook Groups I need to stay up to date on. This way, I’m avoiding the soul-sucking feed all together and going straight to the source. I can do something similar with Reddit, only bookmarking the digital minimalism and NoSurf subreddits that I like to catch up on.
Phone habits
I wrote a bit last week about how frustrated I am that I pick up my phone at every tiny break in my day. While it’s not perfect, I have had some progress. When I wrote last week’s article, I was at 165. As I stated above, this week was 133. It’s a number significantly higher than I’d like it to be, but it’s still down 19%. That’s something I should be proud of.
This habit is a big lesson in self-control. I know it will take me at least a month of consistency before the muscle memory will really shift. I feel highly motivated though. I actually get mad at myself when I pick up my phone at a nonsense moment.
I’ve encountered a couple tricky in-between times, like waiting at the dentist office. I arrived at my appointment time, and typically, my dentist is very prompt, so I didn’t bring a book along. 5 minutes later though, I started to get a bit antsy, I hadn’t been called back. I wanted to pick up my phone so badly (to do what? Look at the weather?). I tucked it deep in my bag and powered through to the 9 minute mark when my name was finally called. 9 tiny minutes with myself was a challenge. I have progress to make.
A big struggle
As I explained here, one important step to take before embarking on this type of journey is finding ways to replace the time you were spending scrolling. I have plenty of things I need to do (most urgently, I need to unpack my Fall clothes), a large stack of books to read (both fiction and non-fiction), an epic audiobook that I’m deep in (Covenant of Water, if anyone is curious), a long backlog of podcast episodes to catch up on, and a yoga practice my body is aching to get back into.
These things DO fill the time. It’s actually outrageous how little time there really is even without social media filling huge stretches of my day.
There is one specific mindset, though, that I am really grappling with. When I’m feeling completely depleted— whether it’s because it’s been a long, exhausting day or a hard, emotional day—or probably some combination of the two, I struggle so hard with not sitting on the couch and pulling up my browser to mindlessly scroll. It’s absurd because I know it’s making me feel worse, but I still struggle to fight the urge. Yesterday, I was really disappointed with myself. I told my son to go play because I was reading an important article. Was it important? Of course not. I just wanted a moment to do something mindless. Oof.
I don’t have an answer for how to fight this yet. I am so curious why it’s easier to scroll in these moments than, say, read a book, so I’m going to do some more research on the subject. If you have advice, I welcome it!
A new challenge
I started this Substack to document my progress, to motivate me, and to share all the things I’m learning with other like minded people (like you!). What I didn’t expect was for it to be a deterrent to my progress.
Before launching Break Free, I thought I wouldn’t engage in Notes. It’s too social media-adjacent (or plainly, it is social media). But the fact is, I’m not on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, or X so I need to promote Break Free somewhere. It’s tricky. I found myself scrolling and scrolling, checking my notifications, hoping for validation, getting bummed when it didn’t come, feeling a tiny dopamine hit when it did.
Then, there’s the stats. By day 3, I realized I had to turn off all email notifications from Substack. I was constantly checking my email to see if I had any new subscribers, followers, or comments on my Notes. Turning off the notifications helped, but then I was just refreshing the app or checking in on my laptop browser.
During the first two weeks, the bulk of my time on my phone was spent on Substack. Week 2 was a little better until one of my posts, Why do we hate follow, started to spread a bit on Reddit, giving me a huge boost. I was back to hitting refresh, refresh, refresh on my dashboard to see if my subscriber count was growing.
This week I’ve been working on boundaries, setting times when I can check my progress and engage in Notes. I’ve stumbled a little bit. This might be another place where those app blocking apps could help me. It’s delicate. I want this little corner of the internet to grow, but it’s counterintuitive to my whole mission if I’m letting it influence my goals in a negative way.
It’s mostly good
This essay might be reading as a bit defeatist, but I’m far from defeated. I feel so much joy that I was able to cut out Instagram, I’m proud that I am making progress on my goals. This motivation has spread to other parts of my life too. Changing my mindset to a growth mindset (something I would have rolled my eyes at just six months ago) has transformed the way I address any fiction in my life. Not only do I want to grow, I’m actually putting action behind my goals.
I’m more observant of my actions. I was feeling a bit tetchy recently – hitting my “okay I need a break” point way too early in the day. At first, I couldn’t understand why. Then, it hit me that I wasn’t out walking as much as I had in the summer. Me and the kids were used to daily long walks, and now that school is in session, we’re getting out less. Which means, I’m not getting the daily walks that I really need for my mental health. I realized that I needed to schedule these back in, and within three days, I could feel the difference.
I also just feel happier. I’m not comparing my life to other people, my home to other houses, my things to other things. I’m content with what I have and where I am and most importantly, the path I’m on.
This is my life, uniquely mine. It’s perfectly imperfect, a beautiful mess.