Phone Trouble
Key Insights
An unintended phone malfunction cut my screen time in half, boosting that week’s productivity
Three tips to cut down on wasting time on your phone
On Sunday night, my phone started acting up. It seemed to automatically open apps and press buttons beyond my control. An image popped into my head of my 1.5-year-old running around with my phone, tapping the screen to see a picture of her big brother and her as a baby, over and over again. “See baby, see baby”. She had my phone for less than a minute. But she is extremely skilled at breaking things in surprisingly short order.
By Monday morning, I had figured out that the swipe-up function on my iPhone was no longer working. The swipe-up function is fairly crucial on the iPhone 12. Bummer. But I figured this could be an opportunity to use my phone less. A natural experiment to see if that would improve my productivity. The limited touchscreen function certainly cut my phone time use in half. My phone had turned into a reactive device - I could open any messages or emails being sent to me and answer them, but I was not able to open my phone.
An odd sense of relief fell over me. This was amazing. No more opening Facebook and scrolling through messages or ads I wasn’t interested in. No more compulsive checking of my calendar to see upcoming meetings that I was already aware of. And no more checking the Fitbit app to inform me of how well I had slept that night.
By 11 am on Monday, I had finished half of the day’s tasks, plus three small chores I had postponed since last week. It felt like being on steroids (although admittedly, I don’t know how that feels). I had even emailed an insurance company for a home insurance quote, something I should have done a year ago, and scheduled an appointment with the Apple Genius Bar for the next day.
The next day, the Genius Bar expert confirmed my diagnosis. The lowest strip of my touchscreen was no longer responsive. She showed me how to change the settings, so I had an alternative floating home button on my screen that I could drag anywhere. “This might help you for the time being, but you might want to book the repair”, she said. “It is a bit over $300 for a new touchscreen”. I looked at the dollar amount on her iPad screen. “Well, I’m not sure”, I replied. “I can get everywhere I need to with this floating home button”. “But it is quite cumbersome”, she rebutted. “You have to constantly find it and hit it, instead of moving more seamlessly from app to app”. “That sounds perfect to me”, I replied. “The more cumbersome, the better. It will help me not to check the nothingness on Facebook, or the things in my calendar I already know”. She was too nice to question my answer further.
The week after, my phone sent me my screen time stats. It was down 48% from last week. It had been an exceptionally productive week at work. It really made me wonder. At some point, I likely would get a working phone again. So how could I keep this up? I have tried three tricks since.
1) Leave your phone in a separate space, away from your workspace. This initially freaked me out, because what if school calls? Or what if I miss an important phone call? It turns out, first of all, no one other than scammers calls me, and second of all, I still heard my phone ring.
2) Put your phone in grey scale. It is surprisingly boring to look at the news or social media that way. This worked for a while for me until our ski vacation came up, and I could not see the color-coding on the ski lifts on the mountain’s app to determine which were open or closed.
3) Delete apps. I have deleted Facebook and Instagram, and there are weeks I delete the two news apps I use as well. This is by far the most effective way to cut down on the time I waste on my phone. It works like a dream until I reinstall the apps.
None of these solutions is perfect. Not every option will work, especially if you need your phone to be available for work. But give them a try to see what helps you cut down on mindless screen time.