{"id":2770,"date":"2023-02-10T15:04:17","date_gmt":"2023-02-10T14:04:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gustafa.se\/?p=2770"},"modified":"2023-12-14T12:33:23","modified_gmt":"2023-12-14T11:33:23","slug":"minimize-your-phone-and-decrease-your-screen-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gustafa.se\/en\/2023\/02\/10\/minimize-your-phone-and-decrease-your-screen-time\/","title":{"rendered":"Minimize Your Phone and Decrease Your Screen Time"},"content":{"rendered":"

Introduction<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Parallel to the Phone Setup YouTube Video<\/span><\/a> that I uploaded, I wanted to write a bit about digital decluttering, mainly relating to our smartphones. On average, we seem to daily spend 3-5 hours on our smartphones. Personally, I tend to land somewhere in the middle of that estimation. On days where I\u2019m not mindful about screen time, I have even reached 6 hours, and on more productive days it can be as low as 1.5 hours. I don\u2019t know how these numbers sound to you, but spending a quarter of our time awake holding a device, and looking at its screen sounds ludicrous. However, I fully understand it. Our phones are unbelievably powerful pieces of technology. Describing it as a device with a screen is thinking in a low level of resolution, so to speak. Rather, our phones are portals to a global network, with an ocean of all kinds of content to be immersed in. Setting boundaries for this kind of technology can be difficult, but I believe that we can have a healthy relationship with tech, and in this text, I attempt to outline how this can be achieved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What Do You Want Your Phone To Do?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ask yourself what you seek in a phone. In this context I\u2019m not talking about the specifications and features of particular phone models, or whether you\u2019re team Apple or Android. I did write a bit about this in a previous text<\/span><\/a>, but in this case, I\u2019m more concerned with the question of what purpose we want our phones to fill. Phones used to be just for calling and texting, but now these pocketable devices have transformed into very capable communication and media machines. Because our phones can do so many things, it can be challenging to define what we want to use them for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think that in order to find balance, we can try walking on both sides of the seesaw. If you\u2019re confused about how much you should optimally use your phone – probably because you\u2019ve identified an excessive amount of screen time – try using it less than you think is optimal. In this way, you will experiment in which situations and to which means the phone is useful. When I tried this balancing act, I realized that it may not be optimal to have my phone immediately accessible at my workspace, but that it makes sense to bring it when I\u2019m away from home. I also experienced the feeling of wanting to reach for the phone due to habituation, versus intentionally picking up the phone for productive purposes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Decreasing Screen Time<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If we want to decrease our screen time, we must first know what we\u2019re working with. The screen time trackers built into the settings, or through a third-party app, can give you a detailed insight into how long the screen is awake, and the apps it displays. Going through this data can allow us to reflect on which apps we might overuse, and how much of the time we spend on our phones is actually useful. Zero screen time wouldn\u2019t be productive for me, because then I wouldn\u2019t be able to create content and do a lot of the work I do. But the multiple hours of YouTube and Instagram that I\u2019ve had on certain days in the past exceeds \u201ccreating content\u201d, and it\u2019s more time than I need to view the posts I might want to see for inspirational, educational or entertainment purposes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When we have measured a baseline of phone usage, here are some of the tricks I\u2019ve used to limit it. I have successfully tried all these methods at one point, and I still utilize some of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n