I would like to
start with an honest disclosure, even though I had the realization that I am
spending too much time on my mobile phone with all warning signs like itchy
eyes, disturbed sleep pattern and headache; I have not taken any conscious step
towards reducing my time on mobile. I had convinced myself that the problem has
not reached alarming status yet. It is purely due to certain circumstances that
I was away from my mobile phone for a few days.
So, what
happened!
I accidently
dropped my phone and the murphy's law took care of the rest. Even with
protective cover around it, I broke my screen and the phone stopped working (so
did my heart for a few moments!). As replacing it with original Samsung screen
was damm expensive (almost 50% of phone cost itself), I got it repaired with a
local screen with some apprehensions and as luck would have it. That screen
also stopped working after two days, I just lied down a bed my mobile in my
pocket and apparently the local screen could not withstand this pressure. Ultimately,
I made peace with the fact that I need to shell out some bucks and get myself a
brand-new phone. However, I was in another town plus I need to wait for my
salary to credit before I could buy new phone. With the new phone, I got the
sermon from home minister that I need to buy protection case with flip cover
for increased protection. Hence, I had to wait again for few more day before I
could use the phone again.
All in all, I
was without my phone for a continuous stretch of few days. So, I could get
taste of this so-called Mobile detox for a few days.
So how did the
experience of forced mobile detox worked out for me!
At first, I
thought that it was no big deal. I carry this hidden superiority complex that I
have managed to stay away from the lure of Instagram or mobile games like
candy-crush. I do not feel this inexplicable urge of checking WhatsApp status
of other people all the time, in fact I do not check WhatsApp status at all.
Most of the time, I do not have any OTT subscription on my phone. I have enough
constructive habits like reading etc and most of all. I have my laptop which
almost feels like an extension of my body.
I came to
realize about my folly in matter of few hours only, how something which looks totally
innocuous like taking out my phone to check some random question on Quora
consumes so much of your time because it has become a second nature to do it
once after 10 minutes. Another big-time killer are suggested videos on Facebook,
it was an eye opener for me as I thought only posting random updates or
stalking profiles of other person on Facebook was addictive. Once I stayed away
from phone; did I realize that suggested videos are perhaps the most addictive
thing on Facebook, and they have a complex AI algorithm which tracks and
monitors the videos that you watch and present a heady cocktail of more such
videos which are hard to resist.
Subconsciously
checking the phone has become a compulsion, a habit which is very hard to shake
away. As a result of this, my attention span is limited to few minutes only.
Gone are the days when I could at least concentrate on task in hand for a few
hours. Now no matter how urgent the work is, the maximum uninterrupted time I
could devote to it are few minutes. Few months back, I had an epiphany to add
some academic certifications to my resume, taking advantage of variety of
online courses offered by universities. I zeroed in a course in Robotics offered
by IIT. It started with great pomp and show. I even bragged about this to few
of my close friends hoping that would create positive pressure on me. Heck, I
even wrote one blog post on this topic (My first blog posts this year
incidentally.) Few lectures down the lines and I found myself struggling. My
first conclusion was that course content, and the teaching method were not up
to the mark and most of the students for this course would struggle. Other
excuse was that I started the course on last moment, almost missed the first
assignment date and played catch up for much duration of the course.
After some
time, I enrolled into another course by second IIT. The teacher and course content
were much improvement over previous course but ironically the net outcome was
same that I left this course also midway. In fact, this leads me to very
uncomfortable episode in the past when I left my correspondence degree in the
midway at the last step as I was almost burnt-out.
Obviously,
there were any other factors responsible for this, but one primary factor was
my attention span. I was really struggling to maintain concentration during the
duration of one lecture of 60 min. The conspicuous social media is a big
distraction which is not helping in any sense at all.
The experience
of forced Mobile phone detox taught me that in todays hyper-connected age. Its
very difficult to limit your exposure on unproductive application. Time
management sound like a very boric archaic concept but its more relevant in these
times.
I had
uninstalled Facebook from my old phone but forgot to do it on my new phone and
in no time, I find myself spending more and more time on Facebook. So, I uninstalled
it again relying on browser-based model to check some update once or twice a
day.
Though not
related to phone usage, I also removed Quora password from my laptop as it was
also proving to be a distraction.
Though a
great devours of books I had almost stopped reaching books for past few months.
Hence, I reactivated kindle and started reading a book after long time and as
luck would have it, the main protagonist also switched off her phone so that
she could focus on her work.
In the nutshell I could surmise that this action is not something that can be done successfully in isolation, you must be constantly on guard as subconsciously we replace one app with another, even innocent looking, or so-called productive apps can get you hooked. The temptation of checking your phone time and again is hard to resist. It like a lifestyle change.
