Last Man Standing fucking sucks. There. I said it.
Had to get that off my chest. Anyway, I realized the other day that I spend too much time on my phone. Some folks might say “everyone is addicted to their phone”. Those who know me personally would say “yeah duh”. Both groups are correct.
However, my realization came when I was walking out of the bathroom at my office. Right after I finished washing my hands (I swear), I pulled out my phone to look at… what?
My messages received since the last time I looked at the screen (probably right before going into the bathroom)? The 1 or 2 new tweets that appeared on my timeline during my time in the loo? I honestly don’t remember. But I wasn’t doing anything better, so I pulled out my phone, I guess?
After I exited the water closet, phone in hand, I realized someone could have seen me exiting the bathroom holding my phone. What would a coworker think of my actions?
Regardless of whether they thought it was weird or normal, I decided I didn’t want to be seen as ‘guy who holds phone while exiting bathroom’. So I calmly placed my phone back into my j-crew factory walker vest pocket (sponsored by j-crew [parody]) and strode back to my desk.
At that point in my day, I didn’t have any immediately pressing work to do, which is perhaps why I felt such an itch to look at my small screen once more, as opposed to my larger laptop screen. Even on the walk back to my desk, more than one second of looking at the hallway in front of me seemed like too much.
Like I was somehow wasting my time if I wasn’t tapping or scrolling, only half paying attention to the colorful shapes (devoid of corners, obviously) occupying the 6.1 inch display of my iphone XR (also sponsored [not parody this time {okay fine, it’s parody}]).
Let it be known that I just picked up my phone and put it down 2 times to look at notifications, nearly as soon as it vibrated. These movements were completely muscle memory. I didn’t think at all when I was performing them. Furthermore: I was not getting messages, I was getting notified of the twitter posts of two close associates.
My attention span is absolutely fucked. To be fair, it has sort of been this way all my life, to an extent. Heck, it even has its moments. Later in the afternoon today, I sat down and got a lot of work done with only a few screen-looks (leave a like if you get the reference, gamers).
After a bit of thinking (which was very hard), I determined that the main reason I look at my phone is to feel connected to something. To be clear, I am actually really enjoying my life right now, ‘specially compared to where I was a year ago. But I still find myself rarely wanting to be alone with my own thoughts. I always seem to need some sort of background noise, or some visual distraction.
And for the most part, I think that’s okay. For a long time I’ve thought, “Yeah, I’m addicted to my phone and social media, but everyone is, so who cares.”… Unfortunately I realized today that I care. I wanted to post on this blog weekly, or biweekly if possible. I don’t even remember how long ago my first post after the reboot was, but it was longer than 2 weeks for sure.
I began to wonder how much time I had spent at home staring at my phone after work (despite having nothing to ‘catch up’ on after constantly checking it throughout the workday).
I decided to make a graph to illustrate the time spent on my phone. Check it out here.
lmao sorry. there is not actually a graph.
Anyway, like I said, I don’t think it’s the worst thing in the world to spend a lot of time vegging out on your phone after a workday. How’s it any different than coming home and turning on da boob tube before spending the evening on the couch?
Honestly that’s all that we have energy for sometimes, and that’s fine. No reason to feel bad about it. It’s a simple fix. I’ll use my own situation as an example.
So there it is folks. Easy as that.
In reality, I am hoping to spend less time looking at my phone, specifically less time looking at Twitter. What will this accomplish for me? Idk. I’ll keep you posted though. Anyway I have to go record a podcast.
See u l8r alligators
–Joshi
PS: Looking to sell some navy blue adidas boosts–size 10. HMU
Room Temperature Coffee 