I don’t think I’m alone in this. Phones are great. You have access to EVERYTHING in the world, you can talk to your friends from anywhere, at any time, in an instant. You can read, watch, play, listen, write. It’s incredible. And yet I use it to scroll the same 4 apps all the time.

Have you ever caught yourself scrolling mindlessly scrolling for minutes, even hours, and absolutely hated yourself? I do too. The amount of times I’ve sat myself to read a book, then ended up picking up my phone and forgetting about it is honestly a bit depressing. I can’t watch full-length movies without picking it up some time. I sometimes feel disgusted when I pick up my phone. I know it’s probably a tiny little bit exaggerated, but it’s debilitating to depend so much on it.

I’m brushing my teeth? Time to pick up my phone and put on a video. Get stuck coding? Pick it up. Bathroom? Pick it up.

And the thing is. Phones are fucking amazing. I love texting my friends. I love so much content on YouTube and how it’s freely available. Heck, I love the NYT Games app. I could not get rid of it (my phone, though the NYT app also applies), at all. I can and have taken steps to reduce the screen time. I’ve removed basically all social media, even YouTube (in favor of using the website, though I sometimes reenable it so I can watch it in my Chrome Cast, and then I go back to it). And my screen time has lowered (I had 1 hour 40 minutes yesterday, that’s not bad!). But I still pick it up when I’m bored, and I still had ~6 hours days last week.

Over the next few weeks I’m going to try to improve my “relationship” with it. I want to make myself feel more comfortable with quiet. So this post hopefully serves as a reminder of that goal.