I’m ready to throw my phone in the lake again. This is something that I am always low-grade thinking about doing. You see, the interface generally sucks; it’s compromised in a couple of different ways. The touch typing is awful, it’s a pest with notifications (I have virtually all of them off), and everyone wants you to use an app or make an account, and none of it is mobile first, and and and. So much of the actual content is enshittified in some way, or else it’s gamified, or it just takes you out of your present local moment. There is the doorway problem, so I pick it up and don’t remember what I was just about to do. Worst of all that is that the smartphone is a constant mind thief, stealing away my opportunity for thought, robbing me of the time to think or notice or just do something.
What am I going to do about it? Last week Craig shared his views on the curative powers of allowing for being bored. Austin linked to that and more, today. I listened to the Search Engine episode about phones randomly this week.
It reminded me about my experiment to reduce time on the phone (and iPad). It’s been a mixed bag. I claim to be intentional about it, and have reduced my RSS feeds. But there is still too much time doing effectively nothing on my iPad.
So, inspired by the opening sequence in the podcast where the guest (or host, I forget) ended up at a cabin without internet access for a weekend and came away so refreshed they thought they were a different person, I’m throwing my phone and iPad in the (virtual) lake this weekend. Not really. I’m not using either device except for texting and phone calls (ha) starting at 5 tonight until 8 on Monday, no exceptions. A big chunk is going to be my morning and evening “hour” of RSS checking. The other hard part will be any incidental internet checking, searching, questioning, whatever, throughout the day. I do less of that, but it happens. My solution is to write it down. In fact, I had thought to exempt writing on the iPad, but I think I’ll just write it out long hand instead and see what’s worth transcribing on Monday.
So, that’s it, throw your phone in the lake. The goal is to be more present and access boredom. My theory (and experience) is that good times and good ideas are found there. I want more of that, more boredom. I’ll report back on Monday.
To Reply: Email me if you are bored.
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