Obsessive tracking of screen time and 'digital wellbeing' isn't healthy.

[u/Own-Flow-1810]

Looking at the Digital Wellbeing screen makes me real anxious, sometimes. It's like it's saying I Have To meet this obligation. I've used Discord heavily and felt ashamed at Digital Wellbeing's nags and all, despite me using to to get immersed in niche fiction writing and role-playing communities.

A while back i fervently installed all the minimalist launchers I could find, argued with folks on smartphone addiction, and looked up recommendations on r/nosurf and r/dumbphones which made me more anxious due to thinking I should copy the folks on there and how they viewed excess Internet use as a curse. This went on for more a month as I flipped-flopped.

This afternoon resulted in culmination, as I stood in line at an electronics store and ordered a dumbphone, for $35 that now, I realize I may never use. It made me take a look at myself. Was I doing this for myself, or was I wasting time pleasing a bunch of people trying to conform to their ideals?

Upon my realization I stripped the digital detox measures away, choosing to be free of nagging, and decided to use my smartphone without guilt regardless of what I was doing.

After removing all the minimalist additions to my phone and effectively disabling Digital Wellbeing it was way easier to cope with whatever life threw at me. Sorta like this this op-ed from Wired. After reading it, I sincerely think that going back to a smartphone without restrictions would be better for myself overall, cos I kinda don't want another stressor or two in the form of a so-called wellbeing app breathing down my neck.

Frankly, what it boils down to is: If you truly cannot control yourself around your phone, it's fine. Social media is well known to be made to be addictive, and well, people who couldn't ever control themselves around their phones were never going to win. They shouldn't ever hate themselves or think that high screen time is a moral imperative or that it makes them a bad person- if surrendering to the smartphone is truly easier, then by all means do so.

ETA: My ordered dumbphone will arrive in a few days. Probably gonna see if they accept a change of mind refusal, though I may just take the device and suck it up - for $35 it doesn't seem too worth it to exchange it for anything else since I already have enough data cables, USB drives, earbuds, and assorted tech accessories matching its price range, which here translate to "cheap, medicore stuff in between off brand and name brand".

Not to mention, it's a whole cell phone - not a smartphone but still. Not a lot of deals like that here in New Zealand/Australia.

[u/NotaParisian]

That’s the thing with addictions : stressing you out and feeling guilty is not productive. For some people it can work, but it doesn’t address the underlying issue. It’s like watching your weight, if you’re trying to control the weight itself you’re ending up with eating disorders, body dysmorphia and stuff like that… but if you watch it like a symptom / metric of whatever issue you have in your life (bad eating habits, bad sleep, hormonal issues, medication side effects, but also building muscle mass…) and focus on solving the underlying problem, you’ll less likely try to control the symptom itself.

Guilt isn’t a cure for addictions. Addictions are a symptom of underlying disorders. Social media are taking advantage of our current society which promote individualism and makes us chronically lonely. And whatever other disorder you could have which makes you more vulnerable to addictions.

All those things (screentime tracker, dumbphones, etc…) are meant to be tools in this journey. If you need them. If you still want drop the bad habits, I think you should reframe how you see your journey, and ask yourself the right questions (you and everyone else reading this). Don’t make yourself more mentally ill than you already are.

If you try to put coercitive mesures in place, you’ll transfer your addiction to something else (smoking, eating, gambling, drugs, alcohol, etc…), so that’s why you feel like shit by doing this.

Take care of yourself, and when you’ll get back on your smartphone, try to put it down sometimes to think about this. About why you’re scrolling, why you wanted to quit the internet in a first place, what this experience teached you about what you really want, and what you could do to succeed next time.

I hope you’ll find peace with yourself

[u/Own-Flow-1810 → u/NotaParisian]

Thank you.

I scroll on social media in my niche communities cos there's simply few folk I know in reality with the same interests as me. That is why social media is so compelling to me, allowing people to connect with each other despite the addictive nature of its design and all.

Frankly, I feel like the dumbphone thing was just a fad I wanted in on. But unlike the historical thing where the Internet, automobile and smartphones were considered fad that would die out, they turned out to be miraculous technology that changed the world in a way - the dumbphone movement won't be one of these. Other technologies already took the world by storm, and I don't think there's really a place for that sort of tech in most people's lives anymore.

There's some part of me that when I saw the people of r/dumbphones showing off their devices, saying, 'No, society has moved on. You're not gonna be able to do this much longer. Why don't you accept that?' Maybe that's why I bought that phone, possibly. I wanted to see that if it could ever be done permanently, but I'd bet when it arrives and I open it, I'd say the answer is no.

[u/NotaParisian → u/Own-Flow-1810]

Yeah, social media do have some interest. That’s the reason I’m interested in digital minimalism, it’s to question myself about my usage of the internet (and social media, by extension). Not just cut everything like some people seem to do here (choice that I understand, but it lacks nuances for most people).

Social media have a net negative impact on my mental health (and physical health, by extension), and I know I’m not alone, a lot of people feel this way. Maybe you’re not the person you would benefit from cutting your usage.of those tools, and that’s totally okay. The goal is to build the life you want, not the life other people says would suit you.

Even if society moved on, there will always be small communities of people doing things the old way. If dumbphones become unusable, people will find a way. Even if the simplest solution is to have as smartphone. That’s what I’m doing, and I hate it. I’m forced to have one and it makes me sick. Not only the smart part, the phone part too. I’m not in a position to do things on that, but some people can and want to. A lot of people won’t accept this if they’re forced to do so, if the new ways is a net negative for them.

At the end, society doesn’t think, it just move on. It doesn’t mean we can’t think, ask ourselves if we benefit from that, and how we want to incorporate that in our life. But you can end up isolated and ostracised if you’re not in a position to do otherwise.