The Cage of My iPhone Addiction

I hate to say it, but I'm addicted to my fricken iPhone.  I browse my phone first thing in the morning before I'm even out of bed, and I browse once I'm back in bed getting ready to sleep for the night.  I'm literally a zombie scrolling through my Instagram, Facebook and Snapchat feeds.  It's become so normal in my everyday life that I don't even pay attention to how much I am using these apps on my phone... and to be completely honest - it's not something I am overly proud of.

Do you find yourself endlessly scrolling through your phone all the time time? Do you scroll so much that you lose track of time and not realize how much time you've actually spent on your phone? Yeah... that's me.  I have "Screen Time" enabled on my iPhone which tells me how much time I've spent on my phone.  I am embarrassed to say that my weekly average is close to 5 hours A DAY.  F-I-V-E  H-O-U-R-S !!! Insane right?? Out of the approximate 16 hours I am awake in a day, 5 hours of it is spent on my phone.  I don't know about you, but I think that's quite a bit.

Cutting down screen time is really hard though.  As time moves forward, technology is becoming more and more prominent and is hard to avoid.  I feel as though we are getting to a place in our society where we have to rely on technology in order to live our lives.  We are beginning to depend on technology to help us with everything.  How many times do you use Google on your phone to search up something, whether it's minor or serious? Aside from my social media usage, I personally use my phone to communicate via text with majority of my family and friends.  I even use it for its flashlight and calculator.  I've booked flights and tickets for events through my phone.  I check my bills and do all my banking through my iPhone. Most importantly, I order pizza and any other food items through the tap of a few of my fingers on my phone! I pretty much manage my whole life through my phone.  Technology is advancing in a way where I won't be able to live my life without it!  I don't know about you, but this kind of scares me.  

I don't want to become a zombie to my phone.  But, it's happening and I already am.  Even with this blog, I use Instagram and Facebook to gain traction so that people will read it.  Without social media, I don't know how else I would promote my blog.  I'm caught in a catch 22.  I feel sort of helpless to the fact that I depend on my phone as much as I do.  With that said, I wonder what I can do to get a break from all of this.  To get a break from technology would mean to be able to experience a life that is NOT behind a screen.  

One tactic I tried to get me off of my phone was by setting a time limit on Instagram through my iPhone Screen Time... but, to be completely honest it did not work LOL! Screen Time tells you when you've reached your limit, but still allows you to ignore the limit and continue scrolling.  Most often I would ignore the limit and continue scrolling.  Do you ever find yourself caught in this cycle of using ur iPhone too much and not wanting to but have a difficult time setting those restrictions on yourself? I am definitely one of these people.

I don't have any goals on how I plan to create boundaries between myself and my social media usage as of yet... but it is definitely something I am going to be thinking about in more depth.  Putting something in place as simple as keeping my phone in my room after work so that I am not tempted to use it.  Or deleting some of my apps for a week so that I'm not tempted to use them.  I am hoping by setting these restrictions on social media and my phone, I will feel a bit more free from the cage of my iPhone addiction.  

Can you relate to any of this at all? What do you do to set boundaries between screen time and real life time? I would love to hear your ideas!

-Salt Spring Island, BC-