"I Think I Actually Hate My Phone" Says Woman Who Cannot Stop Scrolling
On phone addiction and what actually works | Spring Awakening – A Series of Small Attempts to Change No. 8
The first step out of addiction is admitting it.
Which I have successfully avoided for the last decade or so.
Did I not see the flood of articles on phone addiction, social media is ruining our lives, how to digital detox etc. that have been rushing down the internet toilet every day? – Oh, I have.
But have I bothered to actually read one of them? Na-ah.
Phone addiction just sounds so heavy. When all I am doing is just constantly checking my phone: immediately after I wake up for an hour or so and then in five minute intervals: when I’m standing at a red-light, on the bus, whilst walking and having a slight moment of discomfort, when I’m writing something difficult.
– I escape, I’m not addicted. My teeth are not falling out. I can still hold a conversation for about 40 minutes until I can finally take my phone to the bathroom with me and check all the apps and what’s been happening inside my digital life.
Some might call that a problem. I call it work. I call it necessary. I call it normal.
I also call it bullshitting myself, but that is rather new.
The NHS defines addiction as not having control over doing, taking or using something to the point where it could be harmful to you.
Which I guess is the reason why I was so reluctant to ever consider my own phone habit as harmful, because it's so hard to detect the influence, to dissect whatever your feeling is a result of your phone and not the environment you live in, your brain chemistry etc..
Rayne Fisher-Quann
recently said on her TikTok: Here's the thing your phone actually is like definitely making you depressed. (...) Everybody gets really up and arms and they're like no it's the society that we live in (...) and that's true but it's also your phone. (...) I feel like people reject this because it's something your mom used to say.”And I would agree with this. The problem is accepting that something can be harmful whilst also acknowledging that it can be useful.
That I don’t want to live without my phone, without access to social media and google maps and all sorts of answers to questions I have not thought of yet. I love my phone, but I also kind of hate it. And like any good relationship it was time to set some healthy boundaries, that I can actually live with. Something that actually works for me. So this is what I did.