Why I Dumbed Down My Smartphone

Distraction

“A thing that prevents someone from concentrating on something else”

This is the dictionary definition of a distraction and we can be so deeply entrenched in our distracting habits or tendencies that we fail to see them as distractions at all. 

Devices can enrich our lives when used sparingly, however they are designed to take as much of our time as possible.

The most pervasive of these for myself was the smartphone.

87% of adults in the UK owned smartphones in 2020 and on average Brits spend a third of their waking day on their phones (According to a BBC news article from Jan 2022).

Maybe you spend less, maybe more. But ask yourself, how much of that time is worthwhile?

The reason we need to think more about how we use this technology (or how it is using us) is that smartphones can hold endless apps containing software which dishes out endorphin hits, predicated on a model of exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology. 

In Layman's terms..

They are designed to make you an addict.

What else is designed to keep you hooked? 

Social Media

In January 2021, 97.5% of people in the UK used a smartphone to access their social media platforms. 

It benefits the creators of the likes of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Tick Tock for you to spend as much time on their platforms as possible. 

Attention is their currency.

 When we combine the two factors into one easy handheld device, it is no surprise that we cannot peel our attention away from the small glowing slab that you house in your pocket. 

This is why getting rid of social media from your smartphone is as vital an action as any fad diet or productivity hack that you may want to introduce into your life.

 In his book Digital Minimalism, Cal Newport writes that this process will help you cultivate a digital life in which new technologies serve your deeply held values as opposed to subverting them without your permission.

Will you look back tomorrow and think, “I’m really glad I spent all that time scrolling through instagram yesterday”.

 I am not making any judgments here. If you believe that you derive genuine value from something, then crack on. However, the importance of any practice should not be gauged by how often we perform it but rather what we gain from participating. 

And it can be difficult to differentiate, especially when we are so addicted.

 If you regret a certain behaviour but persist in enacting it, then I’m afraid by definition you may be insane. 

The quote, often credited to Albert Einstein, says that the definition of insanity is “doing the same thing over and over again whilst expecting a different result.”

Spending our time in a wasteful manner, to then use excuses of “I’m too busy” or “I just don’t have the time” is stunting our ability to see our intentions through from planning to fruition. 

The best way to combat this impulsive behaviour is to cultivate more self awareness, specifically awareness of the present moment.

 Hindsight can teach us a lot but being aware of your impulses as they arise, and being able to override them, that is a superpower. 

Before you can don a cape and go full vigilante, I'm afraid you have to go through the hard yards. 

In his book Atomic Habits, James Clear suggests that inverting the satisfying nature of a habit is key to reprogramming your mind. He says,

“We are less likely to repeat a bad habit if it is painful or unsatisfying”

We can apply this formula to our technology by making it less alluring, less exciting and more of a pain to use, thus moving us away from our unwanted attachments. 

There has been much said and written on the harms of Social media platforms in recent years, however there is cause for a strong case to be made against email. 

Email correspondence using a mobile phone was the most frequent activity among internet services in the UK in 2020.

Emails work in a similar way to social media notifications or text messages, in that they alert us to something in need of our attention, a little reward for engaging, a little gift for tapping away.

Tapping away your time. 

But why do we need emails on our phone?

 Why do they need to be answered so urgently? 

If something was an urgent issue that needed your attention right away, it would not be sent via an email. 

This constant distraction of being ‘On call’ only serves to pull us away from the joys of daily life. The satisfaction we feel from achieving a ‘flow state’ from a rewarding activity can be punctured at any point. 

The same could be said for phone calls, text messages and notifications. If somebody really needs to contact you then they will call you. 

Before the popularisation of the mobile phone we would leave the house for an entire day without a phone. That premise feels unthinkable today. 

All of our overconsumption problems have only been sped up over the last 2 years as 46% of people use smartphones more now than before the Pandemic.

I’m sure you can agree that we need to take back control and be more mindful in our use of these increasingly intelligent devices.  

As with cutting out anything no longer wanted in our lives, we have to find healthy replacements.

As you cull, be sure to cull-tivate (Sorry) some rewarding practices to replace the time that you used to spend on your phone.

Think of all you can do now. 

Find more about this in my guide How to dumb down your smartphone 

Further reading: 

Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport

Atomic habits by James Clear