Screen-free lulls

Can I stay off my phone during the micro-moments of my day?

How many tiny lulls exist in one day? You know those little moments in between the big and medium ones – the time waiting for the elevator or riding the elevator to your floor, the stop lights, the two minutes you’re waiting for the microwave to finish reheating your coffee, waiting in line at the grocery store, arriving early to meet up with a friend, waiting for your kids to tie their shoes. 

What do you do in those little moments? 

I know what I do. Instinctually, 9 out of 10 times, I pick up my phone. These are micro-moments of my day – sometimes less than a minute – where my reflex is to reach for that dopamine hit. My body acts before my brain can even register what I’m doing. It would be nice if I used those moments to text a quick “I miss you” to my long-distance best friend or give my mom a ring for a little catch-up. In an ideal world, I do nothing. I just sit with myself. Instead, I mindlessly scroll through some energy-sucking app like Instagram or Facebook or Reddit. 

As a parent of two kids, I spend a lot of time driving around town. Here’s an example of how this plays out for me:

I come to a stop light. Immediately, I pick up my phone and open some doom app. 

Internal monologue: “What are you doing? This is a fifteen second light. PUT DOWN THE PHONE.”

I put down the phone. The light turns green. 

Three minutes later, I arrive at another stop light. I pick up my phone and open the same doom app. 

I call them doom apps because they genuinely cause me anxiety. I know that they make me feel sad and zapped and completely not myself. And yes, I know picking up my phone at a stop light isn’t even legal, nor safe. I love to follow the rules! My fear of authority combined with the complete pit in my stomach that these apps trigger should completely eliminate this awful habit.  

So why do I continue to go for my phone during every single lull of every single day, and more importantly, can I break this habit? 

According to this study, the average American picks up their phone 144 times a day. Writing this, I finally mustered up the courage to face my own data by looking at the Screen Time statistics in my iPhone settings. 

My average this week – 165 pickups a day. Oof. What really stings about that number – these are my statistics after a few months of working to be aware of my phone habits and trying to make better choices. Screen Time doesn’t seem to store the data beyond a week at a time, besides telling you if you are up or down from the week prior, but I’m sure my average was closer to 200 pickups or more when I started this journey. 

So am I chasing a dopamine hit or am I subconsciously fearful of being alone with myself for even 30 seconds at a time? 

I delved deeper into the research to find out. 

Information-seeking creatures

One compelling piece of evidence I found – humans are, by nature, information-seeking creatures. From Big Think: “We’ve long been fascinated by the endless streams of data available in the world around us, and we especially love to try to make sense of them.” Smartphones give us immediate access to that information. As your mind wanders and ponders a question, instead of ruminating further, you can immediately pick up your phone and find out the answer.

I do this all day. I might think, “October is here. I wonder if I should unpack my sweaters yet.” Then, I’ll pull up the weather app and check the forecast for the next 10 days. Or, I’ll wonder how my kid’s day at school is going. I could simply wait to ask my kid after school pick-up, but usually, I’ll open up the school app and see if the teachers uploaded any new pictures of their day. Chances are, once my phone is in my hand, I’ll also quickly check my email, maybe find myself back on those doom apps.

Dopamine plays a role here too. According to Susan Weinschenk Ph.D. in Psychology Today, “Dopamine causes you to want, desire, seek out, and search. It increases your general level of arousal and your goal-directed behavior. Dopamine makes you curious about ideas and fuels your searching for information.” This sounds fairly innocuous right? Isn’t it a good thing to be curious about ideas, then learn more about them? 

Weinschenk continues, “You tend to seek more than you are satisfied. You can get into a dopamine loop...The dopamine system is especially sensitive to ‘cues’ that a reward is coming (remember Ivan Pavlov?). If there is a small, specific cue that signifies that something is going to happen, that sets off our dopamine system. So when there is a sound (auditory cue) or a visual cue that a notification has arrived, that cue enhances the addictive effect. It's not the reward itself that keeps the dopamine loop going; it's the anticipation of the reward.”

Just like Ivan Pavlov’s infamous dogs, I’ve been “trained” to seek out that dopamine hit at every lull in my day. I’d dare to say this puts me in an addiction category, but that’s a lengthy subject for another day. 

There’s more to the story than dopamine. How did I get in this cycle or “dopamine loop” in the first place? Am I trying to escape from myself by preventing my mind from wandering? 

The fear of mind-wandering

Let’s say you are watching two strangers interact. Stranger One is telling Stranger Two a story. You can tell he’s really engaged in telling this story – he’s animated and urgent, he’s using lots of hand gestures to get his point across. Stranger Two keeps picking up his phone in the middle of the story – tapping, scrolling, typing. As you observe this duo, you’d likely think – Stranger Two does not want to hear what Stranger One has to say – he’s avoiding hearing this story. 

Is this very different from what I am experiencing? Am I avoiding my own self? 

In Stolen Focus, Johann Hari touches on this subject at great length. He first goes into the many benefits of letting your brain just think – mind wandering allows your brain to make new connections, which can present solutions to problems you are trying to solve. It can help you be more creative and open your mind from narrow-thinking. He says, “It is actually a different form of attention-and a necessary one.” 

Johann then hits the same roadblock I hit – he asks, “Given that mind-wandering has been shown to have so many positive effects, why does it so often make us feel bad?” His answer – brain wandering often leads to rumination. When we have a moment to mind wander, most often our stressors float to the top. He says, “In situations of low stress and safety, mind-wandering will be a gift, a pleasure, a creative force. In situations of high stress or danger, mind-wandering will be a torment.”

I found an interesting article by Emily Agnew, “Are you afraid of your own thoughts?” Agnew goes into a bit about frequency illusion. Frequency illusion is when you see something in your life more often once you’ve become aware of it. She explains how this concept can fuel negative thinking, then further, avoidance of being alone with your own thoughts. It’s a bit of a tough cycle to break, but I found her advice to be important. She says, “‘Negative’ thoughts are simply a  sign that something in your inner world needs your attention. As you listen to your scared parts with acceptance and care, they gradually relax and release their burden of fear.” 

Continuing to avoid Stranger One (aka me) will only further spiral myself into negative thinking. Only by facing myself, allowing my mind to wander, can I begin to use that time how Johann puts it –as a creative force. 

Breaking the habit 

Reshaping my relationship with technology is an on-going journey, and today I’m ready to tackle these lulls. It’s time for me to break the dopamine loop and allow myself to just be. These are micro-moments of my day, but there are hundreds of them. It’s time to implement screen-free lulls. 

Here’s how I’m going to do it.

GOAL: Stop picking my phone up at every lull (stoplights, waiting for a friend, microwaving breakfast, etc.)

STEPS:

• Put the phone down or put it far away:

  • In my car this should be insanely easy because I have CarPlay. I can still control the map, music, and see if any important calls are coming in. I have a very long charging cable. I can tuck my phone away and keep it out of reach.

  • In public, I can leave my phone in my bag. If I’m waiting for someone, and I’m worried they might text/call, I can put my AirPods in so that I can hear the notification. 

  • At home, I will start leaving my phone in my room. Same thing applies with my AirPods if I’m expecting any important phone calls.

• Practice mini-meditations: Meditation is a scary word for me – probably stemming from that deep-rooted fear of myself. I’m not ready to take on a true meditation practice - though I hope to one day - but for now, I can take deep breaths at stop lights, I can look out the window waiting for my food to heat up, I can try to just be.

Anyone with me? 

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Hi reader. In the coming weeks, I’m launching a new reader Q&A series. If you have a question about digital minimalism or starting your own journey to break free from the internet, shoot me a message at the link below.