I’m really fascinated by own behavior around my phone, my love/hate relationship with social media, and general feeling a push and pull towards and away my phone and social media sites. It’s so easy to get lost in online spaces. To distract myself from my life. To let social media take me out of my life.
I wanted to share a few articles, resources and guides that I find really helpful in normalizing this (I’m not the only one who struggles) and solving it on a personal level.
First, this medium article by “Coach Tony” about how to configure your phone to be a tool that you use rather than a constant distraction has significantly changed my life. It took about two hours to really go through all the steps and get my phone set up the way he recommends, but it has totally paid for itself in time I haven’t spent scrolling facebook and instagram. I can’t recommend this process enough.
How to configure your phone to work for you, not against you
Organizations – this is a great organization that’s working to bring some accountability to tech companies because a lot of the reason that phones are so distracting is that they’re designed to work that way. And I think we should do something about that.
Center for Humane Technology (this link is to a list of tips to make your phone less distracting)
Articles – if you’re not sure about whether or not you should remove social media apps from your phone, I come back to these articles pretty regularly to remind myself why this is important.
Six Years with a distraction free iPhone by Jake Knapp
Do Not Disturb: How I ditched my phone and unbroken my brain by Kevin Roose
Books (true confession – of these three books, I’ve only read The Cyber Effect, which was VERY eye opening, but the other two have been highly recommended, so I thought I’d go ahead and share).
Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World by Cal Newport
How to Break Up with your Phone by Catherine Price
The Cyber Effect by Mary Aiken (this book is about how digital behavior changes online, so if you ever wonder how people you know in real life can be totally different online, this is a great place to look.
Movie – one of the things that I think Mary Aiken does a great job of in The Cyber Effect is conceptualize what the internet is, and this movie brings her conceptualization to light in a helpful way that I think everyone should be more aware of.
Ralph Breaks the Internet (we might need a whole post devoted to this movie, so go ahead and watch it)
On the Banks 