Are you ready to stop filling your life and your mind with whatever pops up on your smartphone? Are you ready to free yourself of the time-sucking activity of being attached to that said smart phone? Do you want to be looking out into the world instead of down into your hand? Then keep reading for just few ideas on how to start.
If you have recently been in a fast-food chain you have probably seen the calorie count listed next to the item you want. You might have ignored it, or it may have helped you make a healthier choice about what you are about to consume.
When you ordered your last craft beer you might have been conscious about the alcohol content—either for better or for worse. In any event, you took notice what you were putting into your body and mind. However, on the 150th time you picked up your smart phone yesterday you probably did not take notice in deciding what you wanted to take into your body and mind.
Now maybe you don’t look at your smart phone that often, but I am betting that you do unless you are consciously trying not to, or you may even be looking at it more. Every time a buzz, a ding or a ring comes through, it is begging you to “look at me, look at me”. But not only do you look, you stay looking, on its time, not yours. You did not choose to see what the breaking headline is, it chooses for you. Yes, it’s true you can keep all your alerts on and see very Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and virtually any other of the hundreds of apps that you have on your smartphone. So you are choosing to be interrupted, to be moved away from what you are doing, moved away from your spouse, your children and even, yes, your dog, when on that last walk you went on when you tripped over the sidewalk because you were looking at the latest video on Instagram.
But “they” can’t make us (I am just as vulnerable to this scourge as the next person) leave them on, every one of our alerts can be turned off—we just need to want them to be turned off. We just need to get over our fear of missing out, get over our constant need to know and start looking at the “calorie count” or the “alcohol content” on our mobile devices. We must start paying attention to what we are putting into our minds and our bodies. It’s not just the alerts that keep us on the device, but the beautiful and vibrant colors on that amazing screen right? It is so beautiful we keep looking and looking some more.
There is help. In less than fifteen minutes you can turn off all your alerts (depending on how many apps you actually have), you can turn off those vibrant colors in a minute or two and boy is that ugly, a black and white screen does not keep you engaged for very long. (I admit, when I do want to take a look at Instagram pictures I turn my color back on).
I am not demonizing our mobile devices. We need them and think we can’t live without it. We need it to get around town, to check email, to see when the bus is coming, to see the latest sales, to check the time and weather, to take a picture and on occasion we might need to make a call.
Putting the device down gives us an opportunity to take a look at the world, to see the people right in front of us, to see the beauty of a sunny brisk day, to see our loving spouse and our children, to see where our dog just did its business so we can pick it up. But mostly so we can live again in a non-digital world just for part of our day, just for a moment or two being with ourselves, our thoughts, or inner experiences, our observations, and our humanness.