Yesterday evening, as I was browsing some of the blogs I enjoy reading, I stumbled upon the post Step aside, phone by Manu, who started a challenge open to anyone interested:
For the next 4 weeks, each Sunday, we’re gonna publish screenshots of our screen time usage as well as some reflections and notes on how the week went.
For almost two years now, I’ve been trying to drastically reduce the amount of time I spend on my phone, and in front of screens in general.
I have already implemented some changes in order to do so, such as:
- Ditching my smartwatch for a simple Casio one.
- Removing all social media applications from my smartphone and blocking the domains of all major social networks.
- Trying to make my smartphone look less appealing (see my Homescreens page, especially how my phone changed from June to August 2024) by making it “minimalist”: color theme, removing all the useless apps, and hiding the ones I still need from time to time…
- Leaving my phone at home when I go for my daily stroll with my dog.
- A few days ago, I even bought an alarm clock for my nightstand so I can leave my smartphone in another room for the night.
- And so on.
(I should write a post dedicated to all of this.)
Anyway, all that to say I think that my screen time on my phone has already gone down, but I really want to keep up this momentum, so I’m in for this challenge!
Like my fellow bloggers who signed up for this challenge, my main goal is to free up more time to read (books, but also a weekly newspaper I recently subscribed to, for which I will receive the paper version in my mailbox each week, like in the old days). But I also want to do more things that do not involve screens, such as cooking and playing guitar.
Obviously, reducing the time I spend on my phone doesn’t mean I won’t spend a lot of time in front of other screens. Of course, I have hobbies that require me to be in front of a screen (video games, writing, watching movies…), plus my daily job which makes me spend a solid eight hours in front of screens. But I think those activities are productive and/or enriching, unlike the time spent on a smartphone which is usually pure content consumption and doomscrolling of mainly useless content I won’t remember the moment after I looked at it.
So, for this challenge, my main goal is to reduce the time I spend in front of my phone in order to read more, but not to ditch all the screens from my life.
Starting tomorrow (February 15th) and for the next four weeks, each Sunday, I will publish screenshots of my screen time usage and write some notes on how the week went.