How did I fill boring moments before I had a smartphone?

I'm constantly trying to cut back on my smartphone use. I can be successful, I'm good at putting the phone in another room while I do some reading or crafting. The times I struggle are those moments which aren't quite long enough to get stuck into something else.

For example when I'm ready to go out and it's not time to leave, if I'm waiting in the car for someone or while I'm making dinner but there isn't anything that needs chopping or stirring for a few minutes. I also regularly pick up my phone to procrastinate instead of getting on with something boring that I need to do like housework.

I had these moments before a smartphone of course, and it really wasn't that long ago, but it's difficult to remember what it was like!

When I was much younger and found myself waiting around I used to occupy myself with a word game. I would look for a long word on a sign or something nearby and see how many smaller words I could make from the letters. I got very good at it, and I loved the satisfaction of finding a long word. I did this all the time, but I've not done it for years!

If I was waiting for something to finish or I had a few odd minutes I daydreamed, I've always had an active imagination. But I don't remember worrying or getting anxious about things, instead I used to spend a lot of time making up stories in my head.  

I definitely had much better focus. When I was doing homework I didn't look for micro distractions, I just got on with it if it needed to be done. I would be hopeless now, with a phone to pick up whenever things got difficult!

If I was waiting around for someone, which we did a lot more when we didn't have phones to let people know if we were running late, I suppose I must just have stood there and looked at what was going on around me. I'm always arriving early, and I remember just sitting on a bench or something and waiting patiently!

I did use to read magazines more often, perhaps they were a way of filling a few minutes at a time without the commitment of a book. I also watched more television. We had it on in the mornings while we were getting ready (The Big Breakfast!) so if we were early there was something to watch while we waited.

Photo credit Artem Beliaikin via Unsplash

If I want to cut down on my smartphone use it's these moments that I need to manage. I'm going to start playing my word game again, and maybe trying to take a few moments just to breathe or to watch what's going on around me rather than getting sucked into the mindless scrolling!

I'm glad I didn't have a smartphone as a teenager

As my children get older and become more and more attached to their phones it makes me so glad that I didn't have one when I was a teenager! I do talk to the children (a lot!) about sensible smartphone use, switching it off to concentrate on a longer task, no phones before bed and so on, and to be fair they are both very good about it. But it feels as though so much of their life is spent online these days, from homework to socialising to entertainment.

If I had owned a smartphone back then I would never have been able to sit down to my homework with a phone pinging away. Even if it was on silent or in the other room I would be thinking about it and worrying that I was missing out.

While constant access to a search engine with all the answers is brilliant, it makes the children more lazy. I was helping Mia with some science homework, which was questions based on a chapter in the text book. She was doing the homework by googling rather than reading back through the pages, and although she always found the correct answer I can't help but feel that the information isn't retained in the same way.  

The phone makes it so easy to procrastinate because a quick scroll is much easier on the brain than really thinking about something. I would have found it so easy to just grab my phone if something in my homework wasn't making sense, rather than working through it. I definitely would have found it difficult to get to things like music practice when I had easier entertainment on offer.

There's also the social aspect of the phone, and seeing what everyone else is up to at every moment. It must be so easy to feel left out if you are seeing pictures of your friends all out together and you've not been invited. Fortunately my children don't use social media yet, but they do use WhatsApp which has status updates similar to Instagram, and it has caused us issues with "games" like tagging your favourite friends.

Photo credit Bruce Mars via Unsplash

Out and about, I'm always dodging teenagers that are walking along with a phone in front of their face. The other morning I nearly hit a boy in the car, he walked right out in front of me while looking at his phone. Luckily I was driving slowly and was easily able to stop. What will they be like when they start driving if they can't put their phones down for any length of time?

I know that I'm sounding like a judgy old lady, but I actually find it really scary to think about what addictive apps like TikTok are doing to children's brains and attention spans (and of course my own too, I struggle with my own scrolling issues!) Maybe I need to lighten up a bit and just accept that this is how the world is now!

Ways that my phone makes me anxious

I wouldn't like to say that I'm addicted to my phone exactly, but the truth is that I waste far more time on it than I would like. And recently I've noticed that when I pick up my phone I start to experience some feelings of anxiety, in particular my heart rate feels like it is increasing. This has become more of a recent problem and is a bit worrying, so I've decided to try and have a think about what is causing this, and how I can put a stop to it. 

Here are some of the ways that my phone makes me anxious:

I feel pressure to be constantly on call. The school needs to be able to contact me, and my husband use our phones to send messages to each other during the day. So I can't turn it off or even put it in another room in case I miss something.

My phone itself is a few years old now, but it would be expensive to replace. When I'm out and about I'm constantly checking my bag or pockets to make sure that I still have it.

I receive a lot of e-mails. True that most of them aren't important, but a lot of communication from the school for example is sent by e-mail and needs to be acted on. 

I work part-time for a company that sometimes sends out intermittent work at short notice. Often an e-mail will be sent advising that work is available that then runs out a few hours later. So if I miss an e-mail I miss the work, but if I check the e-mail and find work I feel the need to drop everything and get straight on with it. Both things that make me feel anxious!

There is always something new on my phone. A new status update on social media, a news headline, a reply to something that I've shared online. I worry about what I'm missing. 

Even seeing my phone out of the corner of my eye makes me feel anxious. I know that once I pick up my phone and start scrolling I'll find it hard to put it back down. I often get stuck in a cycle of checking the various news apps, my blog reader, social media sites, YouTube and so on, going round and round between them. 

Photo credit Daria Nepriakhina via Unsplash

I already do lots of things to try and break the habit. I don't have social media apps on my phone and nearly all my notifications are switched off. I have reduced who I follow on social media. I keep a book close by to turn to instead of my phone, and when everyone is at home I try to keep the phone in another room. 

I've had successful screen breaks in the past and felt much better for it. So I do know what to do about it, I just need to make more of an effort!