I absolutely hate apps. If I cannot log-in on my desktop and use software with a mouse, a keyboard and the ability to easily see the font (above 12 point please), it’s almost a 99% hard pass. Sometimes there is no choice but I will spend quite a bit of time before caving in to use an app alone.
My phone is not my life (ask my loved ones who try and get me on it regularly – they can’t.) In my daily life, I live 8+ hours a day in front of a computer. (With said keyboard, mouse and fonts larger than 12 point because I make it that way.) Apps by design, are built for fingers, there is no consciousness or efficiency with that for me. If I’m lucky with an app, I can get the font size to a 10 w/o messing it up or making it useless – but rarely. It just gives me another reason to stop using the app.
I use my phone. I check a few times a day on messages and calls. I do not use badges, alerts, bars, sound on anything. I use it on my schedule (or I don’t.) I do have a top 5 that if they call they ring through no matter what – but that is rare.
I have social media – a little. I use it/check it once or twice a week and I use it to, check on the next IN-PERSON meetup. I have friends on all of these but I don’t follow them. I was great a few years ago, it seemed like I broke Facebook as it would give me a picture of the wrench and say “There is nothing to show here.” Good. That was the point. (Now there are adds and I just ignore the feed completely as that is all it is – because I unfollowed everyone.) I get on LinkedIn to share writing and check in on (again) IN-PERSON events as well. Or if I know about something a person I know in real life is doing and I want to learn or support.
I know many who struggle with social media and/or the phone (sometimes they are one and the same). I am challenged at times too with getting streaks on apps. Plus the desire to keep all the information in the same and always available place. It was supposed to make it all easier, keep us connected and save time.
Now it is “easy” to lose hours a day on a device that barely existed 20 years ago.
So I spend extra time setting myself up to live without it. That time spend (and emotional spend) is less for me than what I would lose to the device.
When I hear that the next thing for everyone is have have apps, I shudder. It’s not the world I want to create or live in.
And I think constantly, in light of this and in light of everything else: How much of what we do regularly is stuff we would never consciously choose if we really understood what we were losing?
I might be strange but looking at others has never helped me. I don’t “get inspiration” from looking at what others are AI-editing-lying doing. It doesn’t “give me ideas” or inspire me to go for more. It think there are enough studies out there now that prove it’s not helpful at all, to any of us, young or old. The entire premise since it started has made me anxious and frustrated. See above where I unfollowed every single friend so I could still use Facebook but not be bombarded with images and things I didn’t want.
Even I (the Facebook hacking person) knew that if I wanted to stay informed and visible, I needed to stay on it. So I became visible on my terms.
Because I am the only one I am with all the time and I am the one who matters.
You are the one you are with all the time. You are the only one who matters.
Want to save those hours? Stop consuming content others create that has zero bearing on your life. Really think about it. What is it actually bringing you?
“Well, then I wouldn’t know what’s going on. I wouldn’t find anything new.”
NO. I have spent the last 20 years consciously avoiding everything, and I don’t scroll. But I still know what is going on and I find new people ideas and things constantly. In books, in websites, in my random searches, from the humans I interact with daily.
I see so much anxiety, wasted time and then more wasted time to deal with the anxiety with all this “connection” that is anything but…
If you are online, as a person, as a business, you have to control it and make it work for you. Only you can do it. No one else. Maybe it’s a locked or flip phone. Maybe it’s getting off some of the sites. Maybe it’s only using one or two. Or maybe you only use a computer to do things? (Do you know how well these sites work on computers? Not as well, because it isn’t as compelling – unless you are already addicted.)
When you see it, you can’t unsee it. And the tide is turning for all of us and our sanity I truly hope. It’s not about being visible, it’s about being visible and viewing on YOUR own terms. Then you are being who you are, doing what you want to do and showing up as you desire. Time isn’t lost then. It feels like it expands because you are being you and enjoying it, focusing on what matters to you and not what any of the boxes in our lives say.
