For probably over a year now I've been watching those videos about dumbphones and seperating from the internet more but I never really did anything to act on it, well not anything that lasted more than a few days. But after seeing the screen time on my phone rise again, going from 15 minutes a day to an hour or more, I decided to put my foot down.
The two biggest things were instagram and animal crossing pocket camp. The thing is, neither of those apps made me particularly happy, it was just so I didn't have to be alone with my thoughts, or to do something while watching a youtube video in the background, which I'll get back to. So I deleted both of them off my phone. The 'hardest' part of deleting instagram is that it was my only way of communication with one of my friends. But I just asked for her number and she gave it to me. The issue I can see arising though is that we don't talk much, I mostly kept up with her life via looking at what she posted on instagram. I wouldn't have even known she was pregnant without that. That's just how we've always been as friends I guess. But I suppose if we end up drifting apart cus I can no longer reply to her instagram stories to start conversation then so be it. It'll be sad, because she's the friend I've had for longest, the only friend left from high school, but I don't want to use that as an excuse for instagram anymore. Really, I can check instagram on my computer if I wanted to, it's just more inconvinient, and I don't really want to. If there was a way to keep instagram for just keeping up with my friends lives and nothing else, maybe I'd reconsider this decision. But I don't have enough self control at the moment. As soon as I tap the explore page, because nothing else is interesting me, it all goes down hill. I'm not getting anything out of it except a few minutes of 'entertainment'. I've tried other things for ages now, like putting a 15 minute limit on instagram, but I think it's just better for me to remove it from my life completely. At least for now.
Animal Crossing Pocket Camp Complete. I bought this game as soon as it came out because I was excited for it to not have micro transactions anymore, which is what stopped me from playing it a lot in the past. And yes it's enjoyable enough, but it's just I find myself grinding out leaf tokens so I can buy the pretty limited items. I don't mind a grindy game really, but I just felt like this wasn't adding anything to my life. It would be different if it wasn't a phone game honestly, because this whole thing is about using my phone the least amount of time possible, but it is a phone game so I decided I didn't need it. It was increasing my time on my phone by a *lot* and I just don't think it was really worth it. I still technically have it on my phone, which may be cheating, but I really didn't want to just delete all my save data like that on a whim, so now it's in the hidden folder where I can't see it and be tempted by it.
Even before getting rid of instagram and ac:pc I had been having my phone completely turned off so I'm not tempted to reach for it (and if I do so automatically, it can't turn on with a single button press, it was to be a lot more intentional to hold down the power button). I've decided to keep doing this, even after deleting all the unneeded apps and turning my phone to monochrome, so it's less inticing to look at. It is a luxury for me to be able to do so, the only thing I had missed was a text from my mum asking if I liked pull-over hoodies, not exactly urgent. A lot of people arent able to do so because they need to recieve important calls and texts but honestly the only calls I had been getting were all people trying to scam me, which was just annoying even if I never picked up because I hate seeing the little notification thing on the phone app. Even if I do have my phone on I have it on a variation of do not disturb which is supposed to block all calls except those in my contacts. Basically my phone is used to take calls and message people, a novel concept truly. I do have other things on it like the camera and photo app of course, and I have an easy button to turn off monochromatic mode if I need to take a photo of something. I also have things like maps, and find my iphone because I am still terrified of the outside world. If I don't know where I am at all times, I will panic, that's just how I am. And I will panic if there's not a way for my mum to know where I am because my head will go to all the worse case scenarios. At the end of the day, I need to still be safe, and that's why I can't just switch to a dumbphones on a whim. The people I've watched that make videos about trying a dumbphone are very often men who could easily take care of themself if the worst happened. I am afab, and look feminine, I'm also autistic and prone to anxiety attacks. There are too many risks for me, it's just unrealistic. So i made the most with what I have and my limitations.
Moving on from that, I haven't been particularly work efficient since doing this. In fact I've not really gotten anything done, but that's not abnormal for me. I have though been spending more time outside my room seeking social interaction, which is different. It's necessarily because I did all that to my phone, more so I've been forcing myself away from the computer more. Because really, my laptop is more of the problem for me. I'm still unsure how that problem will be fixed. But I've been making an effort. I turn my laptop completely off when it's not being used, instead of putting it into sleep mode so if I realllllly want to go on it, I at least have to wait for it to boot up. I also have never been one to take my laptop away from my desk, like to my bed or anything, so that hasn't changed. And the biggest thing is that I've been limiting my time on youtube. Youtube is defintely my worst point. I will spend entire days just watching youtube and while sometimes I do learn something, there's many times where I'm just watching essentially slop content and getting fed internet drama that doesn't matter so I want to cut that out as much as possible. I have fallen down a few rabbit holes, but it's certainly not been as bad. Theyre usually more informative rabbit holes.
I hope that limiting my time on the internet, and making it more intentional will help with for shit I feel about the world. Obviously, terrible things are going to continue happening, but frankly I dont think I need to be aware of every little bit of it. If its not effecting my daily life, I shouldnt be stressing over it every single day. Its selfish but this is what I need right now. I cant keep stressing about other peoples lives while Im desperately trying to get my own together. Everyday it just feels like the world is getting worse and its becoming more and more a world I dont want to be apart of. Ignorance is bliss. If this selfishness can make me not think about things I cant control, then so be it. I just wasn't made to see everything, and know everything thats going on around the world. My scope just needs to be a lot smaller. I dont need to be owrrying about american politics when theres nothing I can do about them. You know what I can do though? I can worry about Australian politics because that is something that is going to effect me directly. I can put my vote in because that actually matters, my vote will make a difference. Anyway politics isnt the point, its just something very big in the world right now, as it always is.
Even if all I've done is write a jounral entry, I can't help but feel a little bit productive because it still counts as updating my site. There's so many things I want to talk about but I just can't find the motivation to actually write words down. But at least I did something. Maybe I can justify spending some time on my 3ds now (which is mostly what I've been doing instead of mindlessly scrolling youtube.... look im not saying its productive! but it at least uses a bit more brain power). Maybe someday soon I can find the energy to actually do something, but to be fair my psychologist did tell me to take it easy. Bye bye for now!
Kai