This was originally written on November 19, 2024.

The 2024 US presidential election has been a reckoning in a great many ways.  It is a very easy thing to say that the people of the United States are fundamentally not a decent people, or a caring people, or an intelligent people, and that instead we are short-sighted, selfish, and bitter.  Maybe there is a plague in our culture that eliminates decency and community and makes it feel like we’re in an era of rugged individualism again, like the Wild West, or the homesteading days.  Except we’re obviously not.  People like me, who find things in the country to absolutely love are asking: Are we no longer greater than the sum of our parts? Has American Exceptionalism turned into American Vengeance? What is it for a people to get vengeance on themselves?  

When the results of this election were known, I felt as if I was being trolled.  How could so many people vote for Trump? How could so many other people stay home? I asked because we’re supposed to vote for the person who will actually make things better.  Because they need to be better.  That’s one thing virtually all Americans can agree on.  So, to me, it seemed if people were voting, not out of altruism, but out of spite.  Sure, we all feel shitty.  But I want the other side to feel more shitty than me.  

Maybe the result of this election has less to do with Trump specifically and more with a long, slow, yet deliberate process that allows Trump to win in the first place.  People will disagree, but the way smartphones have permeated every single aspect of society seems to have irrefutably changed community, family, and friendship.  That rugged individualism is now coupled with a deep-laden insecurity, mixed with an angry defiance.  And that is a truly terrible combination. What else could make people believe that they know more than those with expertise and credentials? Nobody can know any more than anyone else in our world anymore.

Parents take the side of their kids against their teachers, because teachers can’t really know what’s going on with their kid, despite their training and dealing with a multitude of kids all the time.  People go against the advice of their doctors with vaccines, treatments, and a host of other things because how dare someone else know more than me.  People can vote away their rights and freedoms to spite those who want to improve things for all groups, and not just some.  The times in which we live make it impossible for anyone to tell someone virtually anything.  People disagree out of spite.  How else can you explain the flat-earthers?  

Many people also just want to play the fed-up victim, when they are clearly not.  And that’s such a shame because there are actual victims in this country.  These victims are many things, but they are not relatively well-off white people.  

So, in this election, the people want to be both the victim and the oppressor.  Two ideas that cannot exist in tandem.  

The victims seem to be many people. The male podcaster in his 20s asking “Where have all the ‘real’ men gone these days?” while having done nothing with his life other than his podcast.  The victim can be the outrageous number of people who voted for Trump and then immediately Googled “what are tariffs?” and “can I change my vote?”

The real victims are the friends who get together and hang out, but only look at their phones.  They are the ones who have replaced friends and family with technology and algorithms.  In that horrible and misinformation-filled environment, can these supposed victims decide it’s best to throw away our institutions, or values, our expertise, and The Enlightenment altogether because it makes them feel just a little bit better for a fleeting moment?  That’s exactly what happened.

This election was not about the price of eggs, or houses, or anything like that.  This election was and is about the price we have paid for disengaging with one another, viewing anyone we don’t know as an NPC, just to have that intermittent dopamine reinforcement we get from staring at a small glowing rectangle.  

How do a people known for their sense of community and their sense of humor elect someone like Trump? Create a system that negates our positive qualities and emphasizes all our negative qualities and have that be reinforced constantly with every single screen we look at.  Because in that paradigm, everyone who is not you is against you.  

Maybe starting for real, kinda, sorta....

I just took Facebook and Instagram off my phone.  This is the real beginning of the phone detox.  Just in the last hour I've reached to check those apps and forgotten they weren't there.  The impetus to finally do this was having been on break all week.  My screentime was way up and I wasn't happy with that, especially coupled with the lack of cleaning I've done around the house.  I'd like to think of deleting these apps as a big step, similar to a few years ago when I deleted Twitter and Snapchat.  The next step in Catherine Price's plan is "come back to real life" followed by "get physical."  Which is a great transition!

When I don't go to the gym, I wake up with some minor pain in my lower back and running down the side of my left leg.  It's happened 2 or 3 times now, and always after I take a break from the gym.  Now that I know that for sure, that will give me more motivation to go consistently.  Starting in the middle of January, I went to the gym three times a week for six weeks -- the longest stretch in years.  With school starting Monday, I plan on going 3 times per week until the end of the school year.  Which is about 12 weeks.  Also, I just bought a new pair of hiking shoes.  So on the days when I don't go to the gym, and the weather cooperates, I'll be going to some of my favorite places: Birchfield Nature & Art Center, Tifft Farms, Reinstein Woods, etc.  

So here starts the first of the withdrawal symptoms.  I wonder how many times I'll spend unlocking my phone expecting social media to be there.  I also wonder if I will just start reading Reddit as a substitute.  Will have to keep an eye on it.  Also, I think tonight is the night that I take my phone out of my room.  Have it charge in the living room or something.  Have it not be the last thing I see at night and the first thing I see when I wake up in the morning.  The steps I took in the first couple of entries were important, but I think this is the first major one.  

Reflections after Week 1

Something that doesn't have anything to do with my phone usage is that I don't reflect enough on what I read.  Especially if it's something like one of those "self-help" books I mentioned in my last entry.  (Also, just to be abundantly clear, the intended audience of this blog is primarily me.  But I may put it in my Instagram profile just to have it out there as a way to increase my own mental accountability.)  

I read a few more chapters in Catherine Price's How to Break Up With Your Phone and thankfully, one thing she says almost immediately is that you can adapt her plan to suit your needs.  That's why I'm writing this down: I want to remember the things I've decided to do.  

The first thing is to reflect on why I reach for my phone so much.  I've thought of a couple of reasons:

• Boredom.  I've essentially trained myself through behavior modification therapy that my phone can alleviate boredom.  But this leads to a lack of mindfulness on things I actually want to accomplish.  
• Lack of physical fitness.  If I do a physical act that is draining like washing dishes for half an hour or carrying a huge load of laundry up two flights of stairs, I often need to rest and/or catch my breath.  So, I reach for the phone and what should be a 1-2 minute break ends up being a lot more. 
• Connectivity. For some reason, I feel as though I want to open social media apps to "check what's going on."  However, once I'm in the app, I often scroll without reading and keep going even though I'm skipping over most posts.  This is the addiction part of it because I feel like if I keep going for a little while longer, I'll see a really good post.  

Keeping that in mind, along with the information in Price's book, here are some reflections on how the first week of limiting myself to 4 hours of screen time per day went.  

• Computer as substitute.  I'll check social media on my PC instead of my phone.  I'm strangely OK with that because I don't like sitting in front of my computer for too long.  (I actually kind of regret buying a desktop computer with a huge monitor.  My next computer will definitely be a laptop.)  
• Work days are OK.  Days off are tough.  The only day I went over the limit (only by a few minutes) was Wednesday, which I took off from work as a sick day.  My back was really bad and I didn't feel like moving too much.  Today is Saturday, so I'll see how today and tomorrow go.  I just need to do more things on days I don't work.  Being busier means less phone time.  
• Mindfulness.  Adding that screentime widget to my home screen makes me much more cognizant of what I'm doing.  If I find myself zoning out, I'm more likely to stop it because of my goal of staying under the limit.  

Lastly, here are some things that I plan on doing as I spiral more and more things into creating these new habits of using the phone less:

• Phone-free zones.  I bought an alarm clock so I don't charge my phone in my bedroom.  Hopefully removing the phone from that environment (first thing I see in the morning, last thing I see at night) will help create these new habits of using the phone less.  But some other phone free zones are going to be the bathroom and while eating, which I will really try again to keep at the kitchen table.  When I'm with others will be a phone-free zone for myself as much as possible.  If I'm having a conversation with family or friends, I shouldn't be checking my phone during that conversation. 
• Less notifications. Already I had a lot of notifications turned off on my phone.  But today, I turned off even more.  I can always look at the lock screen or in the upper left hand corner to see if I have an email or message.  I just want the phone to ring or vibrate as little as possible.  Now, the main things that have sound & vibration notifications are messages and calling.  All social media is off.  I've already had a "do not disturb" setting on my phone from 10pm to 5am.  During those hours, the only thing my phone rings or vibrates for is an actual phone call from someone in my contacts.  That's it.  
• Lock Screen. I signed up for Catherine Price's email list and got a lock screen wallpaper that says "What do you want to pay attention to?"  

Last weekend, talking to a friend of mine, he mentioned that he went to the St. Patrick's Day parade, then went skiing with his son.  That triggered something I remembered that the only way to really feel rested is to do something for yourself.  So, keeping that in mind, one way to use my phone less is to do more.  Which is the ultimate "why" of all of this: why do I want to use my phone less.  I've been telling myself that in winter I don't like doing very much, but that's a cop out.  For several weekends in a row now I haven't done much of anything on the weekends and that needs to change.  Maybe the phone is related to that.  Why have real experiences if you can have vicarious ones through the comfort of your own phone in your own environment.  Therefore the ultimate why is, hopefully, using the phone less allows me to do more of everything else.  

Forgot I had this thing

I was not prepared for how much structure I would need in order to live my life.  

Let me back up. 

In just over a month, I'll be 40 years old.  And while I have the job I've always wanted, there are areas of my life that let's just say aren't as up to par.  Finances, for one.  But for the purposes of this newly-rediscovered blog, I'll just stick to two areas.  

1. Getting past my phone addiction
2. Getting healthier (I'm combining physical fitness and nutrition into this one)

The second item is a lifelong struggle I'll likely never completely resolve.  The first item is more recent.  Last Sunday, I actually read the "Digital Wellbeing" report that my Galaxy S21+ gives me.  My average screen time for the week was 5 hours 38 minutes per day.  For the first time, I really tried to be mindful of what that report meant.  A lot of things I've been reading and thinking coalesced into a desire to, at first do a digital detox, and then morphed into a desire to completely reshape my relationship with technology - specifically my smartphone.  

So many things rushed into my mind.  During the pandemic, I started drawing again.  I could be doing more of that and improving my skills.  Also during the pandemic, I started reading more than I have in years.  I could do even more.  I could simply get more sleep; I could have friends over for dinner and cook for them; I could really take a shot at hiking like I've been wanting; hell, I could just not lay around the house on weekends feeling mentally exhausted.  And I'm writing, I suppose, not only because I remember Doogie Howser, MD, but also because I want to remember the thoughts and ideas I have on this journey.  Remembering thoughts and ideas is something which constant smartphone use has definitely dulled my abilities.

I guess all this started to coalesce in the last few years, if I really stop and think about it.  And what started it mostly was books.  I started reading about Stoicism, specifically with The Meditations by Marcus Aurelius and also How to Be a Stoic by Massimo Pigliucci.  Those books began to give me the ideas about what you can and cannot control as well as a general outlook on life that is one of reflection and improvement.  Then there are books about fatness -- a community of which I am most definitely a member.  The Elephant in the Room by Tommy Tomlinson was and is something I re-read once a year or so.  In terms of personal experience, I've never related to an author's experience more.  He likens the battle to lose weight like wrestling with an angry hog.  He's not far off.  Although, in my case, it's something more nimble and subtle.  Next are Aubrey Gordon's books What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Fat and You Just Need to Lose Weight.  Dispelling myths about losing weight and learning about the dynamics of fat shaming/fat acceptance in our culture has been enlightening, although the books themselves are more like collections of essays than one continuous theme.  

Now, we really get to the structure theme.  Last summer, I started reading self help/self improvement books.  I started with Atomic Habits by James Clear.  At first I borrowed it from the library, but a few chapters in, I knew this was going to be like The Elephant in the Room in that I would have to keep coming back to it, so I bought it.  Then there was Deep Work by Cal Newport.  Not quite meant for someone in my situation, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.  (Hey - follow me on the GoodReads app!) Getting closer to today, I had Googled something along the lines of how to use your phone less, or about a digital detox.  And Catherine Price's How to Break Up With Your Phone came up.  The local Barnes & Noble had it, and I picked it up.  It was while reading this, ironically, that the Digital Wellbeing notification came up and gave me my grotesque screen time.  (In the interim, Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport has shown up at my door.)

So, here I am.  About 36 hours later after the Digital Wellbeing report.  Day 1 of being mindful of this whole kit and kaboodle.  Thus far, I have changed my phone color mode from "vivid" to "normal" and turned off animations to make the damn thing look less like a slot machine.  I also gave myself a goal of having less than 4 hours of screen time a day, which I achieved on my first day.  However, I'm writing this on my desktop computer.  Not sure if this counts or not.  Still have to write my own rules.  

(Side note - tomorrow I'm going to go to the gym for the first time in a month.  I stopped when I hurt my back over February break.  Still not completely feeling 100%, but fuck it. Enough is enough.)

I've already run into a few snags with the program in How to Break Up With Your Phone.  Some of the apps she recommends are no longer on the Google Play store.  But I think I'm going to take this slowly.  Finish the book before I start the program.  Modify the program into something more personalized.  

First and foremost (as I start my penultimate paragraph) I need to think about what my goals are.  "Using my phone less" isn't specific enough or concrete enough.  I do know this, however: if I use my phone a lot at work, I'm not focused there.  If I use it at home, I'm depriving myself of things that make me feel better: getting enough sleep; having a clean house; drawing; hiking; reading; having people over.  That's what I will focus on.  Perhaps I've found that the phone is the root cause of what I wanted to address anyway.  I used to think that everything stemmed from not getting enough sleep.  But why was I not getting enough sleep? Why is the carpet all wet, Todd?

Now it's time to take not only all this information, but all of these goals and synthesize it into some grand unifying theory about myself.  Imagine all the things I could do with an extra 5 hours a day.  This blog will be a documentation of that journey.  Hopefully some people will read it and add to the accountability factor.  Here we go.