Note: Today is actually Nov 30, 2024. Is it weird to backdate an old post from a different source? Whatever. I made a journal entry and I wanted to save it here since I expect this blog will discuss my relationship with technology.
I am addicted to my phone.
I am addicted to my phone. It’s not destroying my relationships but it’s destroying my relationship with myself.
I got my first phone in 2013. I adopted it after all my friends did, finally while dating a guy who got me on it and then helped me customize it to be exactly what I needed it to be. For the first 6 or so years I stayed pretty consistent with using the phone primarily as a resource or for communication. I was not spending all my time hanging out on the phone or on social media.
Something changed (I think I had my heart broken one too many times) and I just gave up on meeting new people as friends or otherwise, happy with the community I had built and excited to nurture it. Instead of socializing outward like I normally did, I started socializing inward - specifically, inside my phone. I connected with everyone on their preferred apps and that both created a channel for us to get to know each other better, but also fueled further disconnect (on my part) from new people. Then 2020 came and went and that pushed the social isolation further.
It wasn’t all bad. I’ve had some extraordinarily deep conversations with people that would have never happened in real life. Also, people are more direct and more receptive to direct talk via text than they are in person so I can comfortably make much more cutting jokes. Emojis help.
3.5 Star Review
I’m getting to a point where I’m at 10+ years of smartphone use and honestly? I’m not as impressed as I was initially.
It’s very cool, all the things you can do with it! My phone has served many purposes over the years, mostly creative or writing focused, but these days I primarily use it to play games, listen to music, talk to people, track my hobbies, listen and learn, and scroll mindlessly through social media as if I am compelled to see everything as quickly as possible.
TikTok alone connects you to something like 100 videos per hour. 100 people, 100 perspectives, 100 quick statements that you feel yourself in or that make you cry back to back. That’s actually really fucking amazing, if you think about it. A little scary, perhaps not the best way to learn and process information, but still neat.
Since 2019 I’ve listened to 56 days of podcasts consisting of news/current events, reflection of self, philosophy, documentation topics, art, non-binary experience, science facts, Hollywood history, dating and relationships, music, disability, creative process, 99% invisible, trends in technology, and educational technology podcasts. I wasn’t that big intopodcasts before then, though I did use the NPR app for a while before I felt too limited by the selection.
I was sad to give up mix CDs after the 20th time someone told me that they didn’t have any way to play a CD, so my phone was the logical next option to create playlists in an app instead. I’ve made ~9 playlists a year since 2018, giving myself a clear musical illustration of my life through songs that impacted me or which I was really feeling at the time for one reason or another. Listening to these is like going back through time. I could make a playlist on my desktop, too, but the mobile device brings the music with me everywhere and I can build an in-the-moment playlist as needed to capture the mood of something I just experienced. That’s a solid reason for a 3.5* review.
I’ve maintained Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok accounts that gained too many followers to be comfortable with, then closed them all only to reopen another one just a few years later (private, usually). I feel like I’ve had enough posts go viral to understand fame is not what I am looking for. The apps used to at least try to serve you, but now they’ve found ways to make you serve them at the expense of your experience looking through the photos of your loved ones.
I am angry in the comments. Honestly, the side of me that comes out in the comments section is annoying. I was better off never reading the comments.
Mobile sites have gotten just as bad as desktop sites. Full screen pop outs, a chat bot I can’t figure out how to close, a full page ad in the middle of a sentence. I don’t want to download the app to read one article and then never visit your site again.
Apps are buggy more frequently, updates discontinue use of features that I was using the app for (whyyy), and despite all the disappointment I continue to use my phone in most of my free time. It is always in my hand or right next to me. The only thing to reliably get me off my phone is to see me in person or be my cat (she gets phone-free cuddle time). I won’t share my screen time averages but suffice to say it’s time to get a handle on this.
I give it a 3.5* review knowing that the review is influenced by my use of the device, so readers keep that in mind in your purchasing decisions. It loses a full 1.5 stars because it’s designed to pull me in and it’s working. I’ve caught myself scrolling through social media in the weirdest moments just to get a fix.