2022-11-05
My brother’s screen time amounts to 8h a day on average, that is a full time job. He scored 92% in IGCSE. I have another friend who spends 3.5h a day on instagram. One more school friend had his screen time in the 12-13h range during the Diwali vacation. This friend is on self-improvement and lapsed in the vacation. Point being, our smartphones are blackholes in terms of time.
My screen time hovers around 90 mins to 2 hours when excluding video calls which are intentional, and to me productive social interaction. This is still insane to me. 2 hours. That is almost 10% of my day. I have noticed the top 3 apps used are Newpipe, Vanadium (my web browser) and Whatsapp. I’ve deleted all social media and the normal youtube app already. I haven’t played mobile video games in over a year. So the application selection I’ve already sorted.
I intend to get around this problem by having a specific time I check messages every day - Dinner time. While I eat. Apart from this, video calls will either be scheduled or around meal times.
In addition, I have an old phone - the OG galaxy note GT-N7000. I have put alarms on it to remind myself of my schedule and stick to routine. And switch off my phone. If that does not work for whatever reason, I will put in on airplane mode. If that fails in terms of missing something important or other such time sensitive things, which have happened to me in the past, I will let it be - disconnect is from WiFi and let it sit in my bedroom as opposed to my workspace.
This is the solution I’ve come up with.