Search Engine is an excellent podcast hosted by PJ Vogt. It seeks to “answer the questions that keep you up at night.”
It’s one of those podcasts that excite me when it lands in my podcast app.
This week’s question:
“How to stop being so phone addicted (without self-discipline or meditation)”
They review various strategies, dumb phones, and devices designed to limit your phone’s capabilities, thus depriving you of apps, push notifications, and other things that waste your time and will undoubtedly cause you regret in the future.
All fine and good, but also… give me a break.
If you are worried about your social media consumption, remove it from your phone. Or, even better, never download it in the first place. Rather than becoming enthralled or addicted to the next great social media platform, avoid it entirely.
I suspect that TikTok is amazing—filled with fun, entertaining, and enlightening content created by amusing, intelligent, entertaining people—but I wouldn’t know.
I’ve never downloaded the app.
The same is probably true for Instagram, but other than occasionally posting a photo to Instagram at the request of my publicist, I never use that app, either. No looking. No scrolling. No Instagram Live.
I’m sure that Facebook also contains mountains of amusement and enlightenment, but other than cutting and pasting my blog post in the feed each day and returning to it at some point later on to see if I’ve annoyed or amused my audience (usually while waiting in line somewhere), I don’t use that platform, either.
Candy Crush looks really stupid, but it might be fun. I wouldn’t know. I didn’t download that one, either.
Two years ago, I used Twitter to receive my news and follow my favorite sports teams, but when it became a cesspool of hate and stupidity following Musk’s purchase of the company, I stopped using that app, too.
Struggling with push notifications interrupting your day?
Those can be turned off, too. Pretty easily.
Does your work email interrupt your evenings or weekends? I never put my work email on my phone, so I don’t see those messages until I sit down at my computer and open them by choice.
This isn’t rocket science. Remove the things from your phone that are interrupting your life, and you won’t need to purchase dumb phones or dongles or alternate alarm clocks. You won’t need to download apps designed to brick your phone to prevent the other apps from controlling your life.
If social media is stealing your time, energy, and attention, you’re in a bad relationship. End it now.
When I’m 100 years old, I know with absolute certainty that I won’t look back on my life and think:
“I wish I had spent more time on TikTok.”
“I wish I had paid more attention to Instagram.”
“I wish I had scrolled on that Facebook feed.”
“I wish I had responded to more work emails on the weekends. ”
This isn’t hard. Just delete the problem and make better, happier, more productive use of your time.
And I’m not a unicorn when it comes to any of this. Elysha does not use TikTok, Instagram, or Twitter either. Nor do at least six of my closest friends — all highly successful people living happy, productive lives.
If you’re not happy with your social media usage, the constant interruption of email, push notifications, WhatsApp and Signal messages, and worst of all, the use of games like Candy Crush, limit or eliminate these things from your phone and your life.
As I tell my students:
You can spend your life watching other people live their lives on a five-inch screen, or you can stop looking at pixels and start living more of your own life.
Admittedly, none of this makes for a great podcast episode.
Stating the obvious is rarely entertaining.
