How To Put Down Your Phone If You Want

Put down the duckie if you want to play the saxophone

I'm deeply envious of how my parents consumed news and engaged in community for most of their lives. They'd get a newspaper in the morning, watch the TV news at suppertime, and that was it. That was IT. You could go whole hours and have no idea what was happening around the world. And they kept in touch with loved ones by making phone calls, having people over for dinner, and just being in the same physical place at the same time.

But now we live in hell. Everything keeps happening so much all the time and it's happening SO much ALL the time that it sometimes feels like a dereliction of duty to ignore it. Like, we're living in a time where you have to really, really watch out to see if your rights or those of your loved ones are being taken away. But trying to follow the news in 2025 is like trying to drink from a fire hose, if the fire hose was also full of sewage and only some water and also contained addictive chemicals designed to make it so you never wanted to put the fire hose down, even if it's making you sick and you KNOW it’s making you sick but you can’t STOP. How do you even do it?

Putting down the fire hose sometimes is the most important thing, I think. Of course you already know the fire hose is designed at every level to keep you drinking from it. I'm tired of this metaphor, what I'm saying is that you can put your phone away and just not look at it sometimes. It's really, really hard and that's on purpose, there’s nothing wrong with you for finding it hard.

The company that made your phone and the companies that made the worst, time-sucking apps on your phone, the ones that are making you feel bad about your face or your body or your life, are doing that on purpose because it makes them richer to do so. They WANT you doom scrolling. You don't have to let them, though. You can put your phone down.

It’s ridiculous, but I have found that even putting my phone in a different room while I watch a movie saves me from that thing where I have to keep rewinding it because I picked up my phone and started looking at it without even realizing. It’s incredible how easy it can be for me to trick myself, but here we are.

Another really helpful thing is an app called JOMO, which stands for "Joy Of Missing Out." I have it on my iPhone and my MacBook. As usual, the Android people have to fend for themselves and I'm sorry for that. Figure something out, I have noticed you usually do.

Anyway. JOMO allows me to block the apps that are connecting me to people I love/ruining my mental and physical health for chunks of time. I have a few hours scheduled each day where they are blocked and if I try to open, say Instagram, I will see a screen that reminds me "Instagram is JOMO-ing" and if I really, want to look at it anyway, I can go to the JOMO app and ask for a break of 5 to 15 minutes.

I can't explain why, but I find this works a lot better than the "app limit" options built in to iOS. Could it be that the manufacturer of the phone doesn't really want me to not use it? Hard so say. I do know they're hellbent on making me buy endless dongles to convert their proprietary ports into things I can use with my external devices, and they've also been found to purposely slow down their older hardware and reduce battery health so users feel compelled to upgrade their iPhones. So it seems plausible that they're not actually concerned about helping you reduce your usage of their products.

I have also implemented “low-screen Sundays” where I try to look at all screens as little as possible. No social media, no video games, and no TV or movies. eBooks are OK. Music and podcasts are OK. White Lotus and The Last of Us are OK. It’s really not my fault HBO keeps scheduling their prestige shows for Sundays, but generally if I can make it to at least 8pm without turning on the TV I feel good about it.

It’s not a coincidence a lot of spiritual practices include a weekly disconnect coupled with encouragement to focus on What’s Important. For me it’s driving around getting groceries, arts and crafts, and trying for a tidy-ish home before I’m shoved against my will into the slaving meat wheel on Monday morning. I think it’s really good for me! I was telling my therapist about it once and she said, “I don’t think anyone ever regrets time away from their screens.” Doing this on Sunday has an added bonus where I no longer experience that part of the Sunday Scaries where I’m catatonic on the sofa at 6pm and wondering where the weekend went, because I slowed down enough to know where it went.

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