Mindful Tech: Six simple steps to minimize screen time and have a digital-detox.

 I love to think about how, in the 70s, some felt that rock n’ roll threatened the younger generations. Looking back, most would agree it wasn’t all that harmful. Instead, it was pivotal in how we understand our current culture.

One day, we might look back and say the same thing about the internet. Currently, it seems like a threat - especially from the perspective of a teacher and a mom.

What I hope to hold space for on this blog is that there are always two sides to everything. 

So although I am a hard ass about no cell phone usage in my classroom and feel strongly about being in the present moment - I do not think cell phones and the internet are ruining our lives indefinitely. 

We can use any tool for good or bad food or approach them from a neutral place. Like most things, awareness and mindfulness are the most important factors in how we relate to and use things.

Many social media apps receive flack from adults (even the adults who use them themselves), but they are excellent tools for learning, communicating, and creating art. I like to use these apps that way myself, but it wasn’t always that way.

Like the rest of my peers, I first downloaded Instagram in my senior year of high school. I remember posting occasionally, but social media was not my generation’s main communication mode like it is now.

At first, I enjoyed the app to share exciting moments from my life and celebrate those moments with others, too. However, when I started working my 8-5 job, social media became an escape from work I found utterly uninteresting. I began counting down the hours until the end of the day and wishing I was somewhere else. I would look at images of my peers and those considered influencers and compare my life to theirs.

Even though I was well aware that these spaces on the internet are highlight reels, I was flooding myself with images of people on expensive trips, in expensive clothes with a balloon arch behind them and a five-star meal in front of them. Subconsciously I began to feel insecure, which was something I hadn’t felt since 7th grade.

After landing a job I loved, I started coming out of that insecure place, and COVID happened.

It felt like all there was to do was be on the internet, and I once again found myself flooded with images of everyday people looking like models and marketing schemes for products or programs that were supposed to improve your life (like those in the pictures). Even though I knew the messaging in these images wasn’t real, they still left me comparing or wishing I was prettier, skinnier, or happier.

When I returned to in-person teaching and saw the negative effects the use of social media during Covid had on my students, I became sad, and a year later, when I found out I was pregnant with a baby girl, I started to rethink the way these platforms had altered my thinking and self-beliefs. 

The beginning of my pregnancy brought up a lot of unresolved health issues and past traumas that I knew I had to heal to be the best mother for my daughter, but I also wanted to be happier and more at peace with my life. One day, I admitted to myself that happiness would never come from wishing that my life looked like the glamorous photos on my Instagram feed or a self-discovery program being marketed to me through paid advertisement - it would come from being present in my life.

This led me to a 6-month break from the internet and social media, which allowed me to completely reframe how I use those platforms on my phone (which is mostly that I don't unless it is for an intentional purpose).

The following are the six steps I took to use social media again and how I use my phone and the internet mindfully and intentionally.

ORGANIZE YOUR PHONE IN A WAY THAT WORKS FOR YOU AND FLOWS WITH YOUR LIFE.

STEP 1: I started by looking through all of the apps on my phone and deleted all the apps I didn’t need or use. I also put the apps I used the most and (somewhat) needed to function in our modern world on one page and those I used the least or did not necessarily need on another.

STEP 2: It sounds scary to admit, but social media is an addiction. What I used to think was hyperbole when people would say, “I am so addicted to my phone,” which is, in fact, not an exaggeration and, instead, a depressing truth. When I confronted how I would open those apps and scroll with no intentional purpose and sometimes without even realizing I was doing it (I know for a fact most people do this, too), I decided to hide those apps from myself in a folder that was not on the front page of my screen. This way, they weren’t staring me in the face when I picked up and unlocked my phone. 

STEP 3: I deleted my work email app. I decided that when I was not at work, I would be completely present in the other parts of my life. Deleting my work email from my phone allowed me to completely compartmentalize in a way in which, once I was home, I no longer thought about or did anything related to my job.

STEP 4: I turned off all notifications except text messages and phone calls. When most of us post pictures on Instagram or Facebook, we receive notifications when someone likes our posts. These notifications are a literal serotonin boost, and so they become addictive. Before my social media detox, I opened my notifications to see how many people liked my post. Now that I no longer have notifications, I post when I feel I have something I want to share, and I let it be. Mostly, I go about my day, and when doing other things, I completely forget that I even posted. When I reopen the app at another time, I can see others’ responses to what I shared and engage as I choose.

STEP 5: When I want to scroll, I use apps like Pinterest to feed my creativity and inspire new ideas instead of looking at things going on in other people’s lives. When using Pinterest, I do not see images of people I know. Still, rather, I read others’ blog posts to learn something new or look at images that inspire my creative interests, like fashion, art, literature, food, and lifestyle. This kind of scrolling leaves me feeling inspired and ready to be present in my own life rather than spending time looking at the lives of others.

STEP 6: I make iPhone apps that I can use to help support my lifestyle on my phone’s home screen in an organized order. Locating my meditation apps on my home screen is a reminder when I pick up my phone every morning to complete my practice. Even if meditation is not yet your jam, having apps that will help you build healthier habits on the first page of your home screen instead of your social media apps will remind you what is more important and guide you towards a better start to your day.

If, after reading this post, you too feel like you might have an unhealthy relationship with social media, or you just want to be more present and active in your life, I invite you to at least do one of the following:

Turn off your social media notifications.

If you feel like a risk taker like me, DELETE YOUR WORK EMAIL!

Make a list of what you would ideally like to use social media for and what you no longer want to use it for.

PRO TIP!!!

Oh yeah, go through and make sure you aren’t paying for apps you no longer use (I made this mistake one too many times).

Add a meditation app on your home screen like I do as a reminder to practice daily (Or an app that aids in another healthy habit you want to integrate).

But honestly, we could never use these applications again, and the world would still go round (we all know this is true).

…

For me, a holistic and authentic life is one I live in the present moment. When I do that, social media functions more as a personal diary and a place to connect with people I love than as an escape from things I don’t want to face or a mindless activity to pass the time.

More soon,

AJ