Have you ever wondered how many hours a day you spend on your phone? Well, I didn’t. I knew that it was a whole heck of a lot and there was no way that it was going to change, so why quantify it.
Well, last week I was irritated with the frequency with which I was left on open on snapchat (or whatever regional slang you use for opening but failing to respond). Being the mature woman of conviction that I am, I deleted the app in a bit of a heat of rage – classy, I know. I felt immediate relief: now I couldn’t know if I was being ignored, and I couldn’t check that devilish snap map and become instantly disappointed when I found out that it was 5pm, they were alive, and clearly just had no desire to talk to me.
Within in the hour I felt my anxiety rising. My phone hadn’t lit up, I had no built in means of procrastination, and I actually had to sit and do my school work… uninterrupted. Needless to say I couldn’t think about anything but what I was missing. I needed the flash of light, and the sight of the well-known icon. I tried pathetically to log back in to my years-old account for which I had no inkling of what the password could possibly be. I sent the password recovery email to sophieballet123 (hit me up if you want, but be wary, I am permanently locked out for attempting incorrect passwords too many times). So, I couldn’t reset my password, and my snapchat was gone for good.
Again, I felt good, relieved even. At the end of the day I checked my average screen time for the first time, and to my surprise my usage decreased from 8 active hours to 5. Go me, what an accomplishment. I was no longer a screenager. I had convinced myself that I was kicking a bad habit and that I might as well make my first New Year’s resolution ever at the age of eighteen, in… March…
Like most resolutions, I broke it within a few hours. I made a new account, added only the people I cared to keep in touch with, and all was well. My screen time went back up, surpassed the eight-hour mark, and settled at a reasonable eight and a half hours per day. I know that I should find this fact upsetting or even pathetic, but honestly, I’m pretty proud. If I can’t use my phone for fewer hours a day than my Gen Z counterparts, at least I can beat them somehow.