There are more distractions than ever. Depending on your age, you may not be able to remember what life was like without a modern “smartphone”. Like me, you probably know the guilty feeling of spending too much time gorging on digital junk food, wasting precious moments of your life that you can’t get back. Are you more distracted or more focused? Do you have more human connection or less? Is the phone in your bedroom?
During the crazy and misguided lockdowns my travel schedule was wiped out. I had more free time. Our youngest Lucas, 16 at that time showed me a couple videos from an app I had not heard of. I admit I downloaded TikTok. I found some interesting material to engage and engage and engage……3 minutes can easily turn into 30 with any app. The never-ending scrolling nature of this and many apps is of course by design. It is very addictive.
To capture our attention, they must win an incredibly competitive game by serving us the content that gets us to click, watch, and keep scrolling, minute after minute.
I got caught and finally 3 months in I had a moment of clarity and realized the massive time suck it was. I deleted the app. I deleted the FaceBook app off my phone and have only been on that app a few minutes in the last year. I moved Instagram and Twitter to the second page on my phone.
Is there an app you need to delete from your phone? What about moving the app off your home screen? You can add quality to your life by subtracting!