When we were in Sweden (full account to follow, I know, you can’t wait) one day at lunch time herself said that she had been working hard at reducing her time on the phone and had got it down to an average of 25 minutes a day which she felt was the minimum needed to function – messages, calls, banking etc. Mr. Waffle then looked at his screen time on his phone. An average of an hour a day. I looked at mine. Three and a half hours a day. I don’t think I have a spare minute in the day so how am I spending three and a half hours on my phone?
I immediately started to try to reduce my time. I am nothing if not competitive. I’ve given up doing sudoku on my phone and am doing it on paper. This has a treble advantage of reducing my screen time; when I do it at night, I just get tired and go to bed whereas I somehow never felt tired on my phone; and finally giving some relief to my aged arthritic fingers. The other thing I have done is turn my phone to silent permanently. It’s much less distracting that way and it turns out I do not need to see each of the many, many messages that come in on the “random ladies tennis” whatsapp group.
Still despite all my efforts although I’ve got it down to about an hour a day now I can’t seem to get it below that. Even at the end of the day when I feel I haven’t touched my phone there it is an hour a day. Herself just leaves it at home when she goes out. Maybe that is the move but I listen to my podcasts when I am out and about and I love them (podcasts don’t count as screen time – I mean the screen isn’t on – in case you thought that was where your vast screen time stats were coming from). I do seem to have a bit more time though and I am kicking myself that since I first got a smart phone (probably about 15 years ago) I have let so much of my life be mediated through it.
Any tips for reducing my use further?