Earlier this week I shared a secret with the readers of my blog. For more than twenty years, I was a smoker. For most of the last decade, I smoked exclusively in the dark shadows of my property and rarely did I smoke when I was away from my home base.
It’s been a year since I walked away from that addiction. I literally walked away from nearly a full deck of cigarettes and never looked back. Well, as I was sitting here writing about something completely unrelated to this, my mobile phone buzzed on the table next to me. It cut off the next thought that was in process… A notification!
For the most part I have notifications turned off, my ringer is perpetually on buzz mode, my phone should never ring. However, it does buzz for certain functions and the disruption was my device providing me my screen time statistics. Every Sunday my little black phone notifies me of how much of my life it controls.
Sililoquy
Before we get to that, I need to tell a story to provide a little context. Last week, I was having lunch with a friend and we were sitting in the Taco Shell, a brand new Mexican cuisine restaurant on Beacon Avenue, and I reached to my phone to snap a photo of my fully loaded taco shell. Since I spend a lot of time eating in various parts of the riding, I have decided to snap a photo of the delicious offerings I eat in the incredible restaurants I visit and share them on Instagram with a hashtag #foodofsan.
Anyhow, my phone was not in my pocket, not on the counter and not on the table. My heart dropped. Where is my phone? My mind is racing now. I borrow the Taco Shell phone and call my office. “Is my phone there?” I ask. A long pause, far too long for someone who has found my phone on the boardroom table or in the back office. “We don’t see your phone here,” Christina says when she finally returns. “We even gave it a call and didn’t hear it.”
Now I’m panicking. I used it at the bank, and after that I have no idea. I returned to the table. “Mac, I’ve lost my phone. I need to run down to the bank to see if I left it there.” So I left my lunch date and sprinted down Beacon. I did find my phone. It was in my office and thankfully life returned to normal. Unfortunately, I did not get a shot of the super delicious taco from Taco Shell (highly recommended!)
Measuring value by time on screen
Now back to the buzz on the table. The good news is my screen time is down 24% over the week before. The bad news is that I spent an average of 3 hours and 19 minutes each day staring at my phone. Thankfully the most used app last week was Werdsmith, the app I use to write these posts. The second most used app is Insight Timer, my “slip into a deep sleep at night” meditation app. Third is Instagram and it is the only social media app in the top five.
However, even if we round down to 3 hours per day and we work up some basic math, it appears I have another addiction to deal with and some new habits to form. Here let me open my calculator on my mobile…
3 x 7 = 21 hours per week. (That is just 3 hours short of one entire day per week staring at my phone. Sorry kids!)
21 x 4 = 84 hours per month 12 times is 1008 hours per year. 1008 / 24 = 42. 42 days each year I spend staring at my phone. Not waking hours, full 24 hour days. So when I complain about life moving too quickly, or not having enough time in each day… my only saving grace is that a vast percentage of my screen time is productive.
Clearly, I have work to do. So instead of hiding this little secret behind my house I’m going to daylight it and change course. It’s time to change my relationship with my mobile device. Perhaps, I won’t be seen sprinting down Beacon panicking because I’ve lost my phone!
Image by Niek Verlaan from Pixabay
I have pledged to read one less blog of yours per week to reduce my screen time. LOL