Re: Re: I’m Okay With My Screentime
Reading the original and then the reply to it made me reflect on my journey with my screen time. During the pandemic, I had a double digit screen time on my phone alone, dominated mostly by TikTok. Since watching The Social Dilemma in 2021, my life changed for the better: I cut back on social media, started looking into the behind-the-scenes of each product I used, and became more privacy-conscious in general.
It took me a while to get my social media use in check. I contemplated and even tried putting screen time limits on apps, my phone, and even a downtime period – all to no avail. A few months after watching that docudrama, I decided to delete all of my social media accounts and all of their apps (some of them allowed using them without logging in at the time like Twitter) from my phone and laptop.
This wasn’t one of those detoxes you read about on the discover feed. This is not me being pretentious. I believe that the longer you stay away is the more you can tell the impact social media has on your life as it is happening. I actually shut out social media from my life for at least a year.1 I was very serious about it and proud at the same time. My parents couldn’t use “It’s that phone” card on me anymore.
A year or so later, trying social media again piqued my interest and I dabbled with it again. As I did that, with website after website, I started asking myself why we put up with social media being the way it is at all. Having that outside view allowed me to spot being manipulated more (effectively). Nowadays, I still have a double digit screentime – albeit representing all of my devices since that syncs between them now – although like the two I’m (sort of) replying to, it’s a much more intentional use of my time.
I don’t care for the number. I leave the statistics on just for occasionally checking what it is for funs and giggles. These days I use my devices for things I deeply enjoy like writing for my blog, trying to do cool things with that blog, reading, researching, watching cool new things, connecting with people I care about, and so much more. They have finally morphed into the tools they are and not the center of my life like they used to be. They assist me in doing what I want to do and not the other way around.
What started out as a fight against the current is now just another thing I do.
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I don’t have the exact time span. My gut is telling me it was a bit longer. At the very least, it was a year, however. ↩︎