This year for Lent: electronic distractions
filed under: addiction, electronics, family, lent, life, phone
2464 days ago
I think I skipped last year’s Lent, and maybe the year before, too. (You can read about prior years, if you like.) But this year it was clear a few months ago what I needed to give up: my phone.
And then Lent snuck up on me. (It starts tomorrow!) I’m not ready! I can’t let go, not yet, not now! Nooooooo!!!!
So I’ve made some hasty plans. Here they are:
- I’m not giving up the phone entirely. I depend on it to manage most of my life, and I don’t really think I’d be better off with e.g. a paper calendar or paper lists of reminders or communicating via telegraph. Specifically, I’m keeping access to:
- Calling (you know, the “phone”)
- Text messages
- Email (but no notifications)
- Weather
- Music
- Pictures (but no notifications)
- Reminders
- Calendar
- All the various utilities that serve a single purpose that I don’t usually use as a distraction (e.g. Notes, Amazon, Dashlane) (but no notifications)
- I am giving up all the things on my phone that I use to distract myself from boredom. That means hiding the apps, disabling their notifications, and not looking at them at all between now and April 12th. These include:
- Twitter & Google+ (I don’t have Facebook)
- Safari & Chrome
- Newsify / Feedly
- Kindle (I have a Paperwhite; I’ll allow it as a substitute for a physical book)
- Youtube & Air Video HD & Podcasts & Audible
- Games
- Also, to keep myself from just bingeing at a regular computer, I’ll be giving up most of those services entirely (until April 12th):
- Twitter & Google+
- Feedly
- Youtube
- Watching movies and TV shows by myself
- Games on the computer (ha ha! I haven’t done this in years)
- Finally, to get the phone away from my face as much as possible, I’ll be putting it down as soon as I get home, and only picking it up if there’s some specific reason to do so.
- Oh, and I’ll apply a similar rule in the morning – no picking it up until after I’m showered.
Here goes!