by Angelica Dadda
If you’re anything like me, then your phone takes up several hours of your day: playing games, checking social media, and etc. Personally, I almost never place my phone more than an arm’s reach away. I know—I have a problem, and many others do as well (maybe not as severe though). One day, during health class, my class discussed the effects of having technology so widely-available and easily accessible to us; one things that came up during our discussion was an “Internet Sabbath” where you do not have access to the internet for 24 hours and cleanse your mind and life of any technology. I changed it up a bit and decided to just get rid of my phone for a day instead of all technology, and I, then, spent a day where I do not have my device on me at all and see what exactly I do and what happens to me and my mindset.
I already had some predictions of how my day was going to go beforehand; I knew I was definitely going to be more productive and hopefully finish all my assignments and applications that I had due that week. However, besides the productivity aspects, I wasn’t sure how I was going to fare for the rest of the day.
How My Day Went
First of all, I asked my mom to take my phone away from me and not give it back unless it was to respond to someone’s messages and whatnot. She was very enthusiastic in her duties I must say. Then, I carried on with my morning routine as usual and made breakfast. I began working on my school work and completing it all within five hours (I had quite a bit to complete because I may or may not have procrastinated during the school days prior). In addition, I began my work later than I expected because I woke up that day pretty late at around 10 am. During this time, I had a few meetings, and at around three o’clock, I finished most of my school work and responsibilities I had for that day. Thus, I decided to move onto my applications and extracurricular work I had at the time. At around 6, I finished and had dinner.
After all the homework and work for extracurriculars, without my phone, I began exploring various websites and articles on my laptop. In fact, I became somewhat obsessed with online chess, and now I play it anytime I can in my free time (oops). Honestly, I never even realized how fun chess could be, and I used to find it somewhat boring, but now I’m obsessed. Besides that, I ended up stretching a bit and completing a mini yoga session with a video from YouTube on my laptop. And then.... I went back to chess, and I went on a google meet with my friend and talked for the rest of the day. At around 9:30 pm, I decided to read a few pages of a book that I was meaning to finish but never got to. And for some reason, I got tired quite quickly, and I ended up going to bed at 10 pm, which was strange since I rarely go to sleep that early nowadays.
Note: By the way, if you want to try online chess out too, here’s the website: chess.com. ;)
Effects on Phone Use before Bedtime
I always knew that going on your phone before bed isn’t exactly the healthiest thing to do, but I didn’t realize the drastic effect of simply not going on it before bed would do to myself. I found myself going to sleep incredibly early that day! Usually I would go to sleep sometime between 11pm to 1 am. But once I was done with my work that day and had my free time, I ended up going to sleep at 10 pm!
On my usual days, I do admit I would go to bed and spend an hour on my phone which not only affects the time you go to sleep but it also messes with your circadian rhythm. As some of us know, our devices emit blue light which inhibits the production of melatonin, a crucial hormone that controls the circadian rhythm or our sleep-wake schedule; this will make it harder for us to go to sleep and to wake up in the morning.
So if you perhaps have any issues going to bed earlier, try getting off your phone an hour or two before bed, and maybe you’ll find yourself having a much better and restful sleep. :)
Takeaways
Honestly, if I think about it, I waste so much time every single day, and I could be spending those hours on something much more productive or something I enjoy more instead. Being able to spend a day without my phone, I think, kick-started my motivation to limit the time I spend on it from now on. In fact, I actually quite enjoyed the day I had, and it felt incredibly good to get my work done early in the day instead of procrastinating and completing it late at night.
Although I wasn’t completely 100% productive with my time that day while playing chess or calling my friends, it gave me time to enjoy myself, and I had a lot of fun that I probably wouldn’t have had spending that time on my phone. In addition, I found a new thing that I genuinely enjoyed which was chess. To be honest, I wouldn’t have given it a chance if I hadn’t done this experiment, so I’m glad that I was given the opportunity and found something that I liked.
In addition, I found that I was much more aware and appreciative of my surroundings and environment. I went outside to watch the sunset with my mom, and I talked with her a lot more than we usually do. Especially during quarantine times, I find myself rarely talking face-to-face with people, so I think it’s quite important to be able to have the chance and stop to take the time to have a meaningful conversation one on one in person.
Before, because of my reliance on it, I always ended up procrastinating on my work and ended up completing it late at night. Because of this, I would cut into my sleep time and end up going to bed much later than I should. With limiting my phone use, I was able to go to sleep much earlier because I completed all my work early that day. Although I always used to say that I wouldn’t procrastinate that day, I always ended up doing so because my device was always right there and convenient, so being able to not procrastinate and actually completing all my work early was an amazing feeling and something that I want to do much more often.
Future Goals?
Thanks to this ‘experiment’, I learned a lot more things about myself and realized how much time distractions actually take away from me. Although it is very useful and has easy access to find information, I think it can be very easy to get distracted and end up procrastinating on other tasks.
Personally, I think having my phone with me does more damage than good, so I started up a new challenge for myself. Once a week, I will have a day dedicated to not having it with me, similar to this challenge. In addition, I will have a dedicated time period each day where I will not have any distractions near me; this will probably be around from 3 pm to 5 pm. Hopefully within this time period, I will be productive and get things done, so I will not procrastinate and waste my time doing essentially nothing really.
Final Thoughts
If you have the same issue as me with using your phone for hours on end and procrastinating on other work because of it, then I would wholeheartedly recommend this! Taking a day out of your week to just completely get rid of any distractions from your device allows for you to truly focus on yourself without getting distracted.
Even if you don’t want to take a day off from your devices, maybe try not going on your phone at least an hour before you go to bed or set a time period of the day to limit your phone use to focus on other tasks.
Any action done is some progress to a bigger goal. :)
Sources
SCL Health. (n.d.). Why It’s to Ditch the Phone Before Bed. SCL Health. https://www.sclhealth.org/blog/2019/09/why-it-is-time-to-ditch-the-phone-before-bed/#:~:text=Blue%20light%20is%20harmful%20to,wake%20up%20the%20next%20day.