Blog Post #57: About last night

Last night was a very short, and thus rather disappointing for my readers. I was pressed for time, and didn’t give it the effort it deserved. Below is what I meant to say:

Some people have addictive personalities; I’m not one of them, and sympathise with those that do. But there is something that has managed to get through that biological shield, my phone.

Now, I’m certainly not the first or only person who overuses their phone. What grabbed me was that I didn’t think it would happen to me. I don’t really use social media, so the hordes of geniuses working at Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok haven’t had their chance to get their tentacles into me. But that leaves a lot on the table, and over time I have realised that I have spent more, minute by minute, away from reality and sucked into the oblong screen in my hand.

Last night I realised that I had to draw some boundaries. This doesn’t mean I throw out the iPhone and plug in the land-line, but it does mean that I need to figure out ways to minimise the way it interferes with my life.

The first thing I did was put an embargo on taking my phone to bed. My wife has an alarm set already, so that solves the biggest issue. Reducing blue light is only going to improve my sleep. And having a Kindle to read off, rather than a phone, means what I will end up absorbing is going to be far more useful.

The second thing was decreasing the podcasts. When home alone, I can possibly listen to four hours plus a day. One day I will list out my favourites, but my appetite for American political commentary is largely insatiable. While we have seen video shorten over time with the advent of TikTok, there has been an explosion in podcasting length. Joe Rogan (not a huge listener) created the trend of having the 3hr+ podcast, but more and more creators are making longer works. Those who aren’t are becoming increasingly productive, the amount of people pumping out 5 podcasts a week increases with the professionalisation of the industry. Unlike music, which can play in the background, podcasts demand your attention. Attention I could best spend elsewhere.

Finally, I realised that I did have a social media vice, Reddit. It’s a wildly useful tool, from cooking, to IT, to understanding the ideas that are promulgating not just in the US, but back in Australia, New Zealand, England and Germany. But, like all the social media giants, they have used big salaries to lure in ever bigger brains to build tools to lure you into spending more and more time online.

This morning, I realised I need to break free, so I deleted my account. It means that while I can still use the website as a tool to learn things, but without the notification system, there is a massive drop off of interest.

So that’s that, one day closer to a life more aligned with reality, and not the virtual kind.