We All Have a Wholloping Phone Addiction

Muse Experiment, Pt. 2, Consumed are the Weary

This is your executive function team on screens. Photo by Igor Omilaev on Unsplash

Last week I posted about my experiment to do a digital detox for 21 days, essentially preventing my ability to get trapped scrolling, wasting my time, and scattering my focus and patience like bits of paper in front of a roving fan. My hope was to stoke and maintain the flame of my fickle muse and gain creative inspiration and presence that would translate to my writing and relationships. Here’s what happened:

Day 1, Sunday Sept. 1: Old habits die hard and I have to actively remind myself not to check my banned sites, but I’m managing. I’ve hidden the app icons to Instagram, Facebook, and Substack on my phone, where I do essentially all of my scrolling. Not being glued to my prison, er, device (cell=cell) for as long (check) or as often (?) means that I feel more present with my family already. This is the main goal. What could be more important than the embodiment of connection? Embodiment meaning using our physical selves to connect with others in person. We weren’t put on earth as brains in jars (although it makes a compelling alternate reality story), we have bodies on purpose, to be of the earth, to reach out and touch someone, to see at a glance what another’s experience is like. When you meet your friend and their eyes show weariness, this is a sign for you to act with more care, to know something unspoken. The body is the foreground and epitome of living and we must turn away from screens more often to live in ours fully and activate all of their potential. Just how much am I missing around me due to the soft blue-light glow?

7 unread notifications on Substack

Day 2: I awake in the morning with the most vivid and compelling dream symbols. I remember my dreams often and always have going back to childhood. I see them as a rich extension of waking life and they are precious to me, guiding me and showing me things not easily understood with logic. Last night’s were full of amphibians and reptiles. Instead of starting the day with checking my phone to fill my head with other people’s thoughts (although I do try to meditate on gratitude first), I reflect upon my nocturnal themes. An alligator chasing me stands out the most, something I haven’t come across before. As unpleasant as that dream was, lying here quietly and spaciously has me feeling peaceful, attuned, and juicy with possibility. I sense something major percolating. I will look up the alligator on Dream Moods.

To dream that you are running away from an alligator indicates that you are unwilling to confront some painful and disturbing aspect of your subconscious. There is some potentially destructive emotion that you are refusing to acknowledge and own up to.

Hot Damn! Now we’re talking. I love a good mystery. And the alligator was turning into a beautiful and manipulative woman. Come devour and teach me! I will add the frogs for analysis to see if it clarifies this theme.

To see frogs leaping in your dream indicate your lack of commitment. You have a tendency to jump from one thing to another. Alternatively, it may suggest that you are taking major steps toward some goal. It parallels your progress.

Ok, that’s good, that’s good. I can see that, yes. I can’t deny it. My writing overall is a major goal, 30 odd years in the making, and I am jumping around a bit as I chose to publish here in starts and stops instead of crafting my currently paused novel. I am a jumper, a generalist vs a specialist in many ways, trying to reside on many lily pads at once. But that alligator, my subconscious…it sounds like I need to investigate my shadow. What could be a helpful resource? The Enneagram comes to mind, it has popped up in recent conversation. Here’s what the Ennegram Institute says about it:

The Enneagram is a powerful tool that helps us understand our motivations, core beliefs, and unconscious patterns that drive our behavior. …one of the (9) Enneagram Types is dominant for each of us.

I took the test for free last year at my friend’s prompting, having never heard of it. I’ve been familiar with things like Briggs-Meyer and natal birth charts in astrology to look at strengths and weaknesses. The Enneagram is somehow better, cutting right to the personality root without beating around the bush or adding a lot of complexity, like astrology does.

Based on ancient symbols, the roots of the Enneagram method are attributed all the way back to Plato and the more modern interpretations of his work made by the philosopher/mystic/dance teacher of the 19th & 20th century, George Gurdjieff. Compiled by Oscar Ichazo in the 1960’s and 70’s, he set up a school teaching methods for attaining self-realization. Those lessons were later adapted and trademarked by Riso & Hudson, who setup the Enneagram Institute in 1997.

My type is known as the Helper, a person that wants to lead with generosity and compassion, yet has a shadow side showing self-deception, possession, and manipulation. When I first read my type last year, I admit I glanced over the descriptions of the shadow even as they are the core drivers of each type, adaptations from original life wounds. I merely patted myself on the back for my good nature. I could admit that I was people-pleasing, self-sacrificing, and even controlling at times. But possessive? Please! Maybe obsessive. Self-deceptive? No way, I love exploring my flaws. And yet…this time I re-read everything with fresh eyes and an open mind and heart. I wanted to see something I was missing, trusting my deadly alligator dream symbol and the timing of its arrival in my experiment and personal development. So I sat with the ‘foreign’ and distasteful descriptions. I mentally scanned my history for examples of when they might have shown up the strongest. After a few minutes, a heady sense of realization came over me, stuffing my throat with dread. I could barely swallow. How have I missed these? I was suddenly horrified, embarrassed, and ashamed. The lightbulb was on in a dark, abhorrent room. The monster was sometimes me. The jig was up, no more running. I sat there pale and immobile. These traits were a part of me…yes…it’s all true. And if I didn’t face them now, learn to integrate them, they would continue to rule me and my life choices, hidden and maddeningly powerful, able to build scaffolds and harm without resistance. I had a pretty sulky day after that, like wearing a costume sans dignity, but I was determined to keep on the path. No distractions from my feelings.

16 unread notifications on Substack

Day 8: More than a week in, It’s been a little rocky not scratching the itch of checking what everyone is posting. I kinda, sorta cheated by quickly posting my essay on my IG writing page but I’ve stopped feeling like I’m missing something by not being on social media. Funny though, the first thing I saw when I logged back in was a muscled and handsome Nick Hexum of 311 (band) holding a cute fuzzy animal. Bemused, I took a screenshot and clicked elsewhere. You will not tempt with your overt and powerful clickbait!! I have also made the concerted effort not to engage in what I call dopamine fishing via text, sending messages to several people at once to inundate myself with notifications, novelty and the attention/distractions that they bring. I still find myself checking emails repetitively when I am in quiet moments. I’ve guiltily indulged in some rather uncharacteristic retail therapy, but justified it as change of season clothing updates since the quality of fabric and stitch has gone down considerably over the years. My notifications are down compared to last week, yet my phone pickups are up. Oh dear. I’m disappointed that my screen time has dropped only 12% for the week and still at (gulp) 5 hours and 10 minutes a day. Still pretty average for me, with heavy use being around 6 hours a day and low use being around 4 hours a day. I contemplate ways to curtail my compulsive phone checking that allow me to get communications from friends and family, my daughter’s school, the providers of various services I use/appointments I make, and access to music, which is solely through my phone now.

Comparing the numbers for the week before I started and my first week of the experiment (Sunday 9/1-Sat 9/7) it does show my social use was down a lot, from over 13 hours to less than 5. Besides social media sites (It doesn’t consider Substack as one, but I use it as such), text messages are included in this category.

One large benefit of being mindful in my screen consumption is that with fewer extended distractions my executive function has improved noticeably. I’m actually quite shocked at the difference; Adderall couldn’t touch this improvement for me. Parenting with ADHD means that I’ve begrudgingly accepted a certain level of mess in my house, yet it’s looked consistently better in the last week than it has in a long time. Possibly even since I’ve lived here for over a year! It’s easier to do quick tidying, delegation, and task juggling with some new found mental clarity. I’m cooking more healthy, veggie filled meals instead of tossing pre-made stuff in the oven, too burnt out to bother chopping produce by 5pm (Haven’t mastered food prep yet). My ‘fine’ but could be better digestion has improved and my stomach is looking a little flatter from the extra fiber. And I still have enough focus, intention, and presence to make my children feel seen and loved. We’re doing more art projects, reading, outside play, and fort building than we have in ages. We’ve had a great week, and they are showing more aptitude at helping out, getting along (within reason, they are 2 and 6), and being positive. A huge win! Feeling like mom extraordinaire.

Yet, just when life in the experiment seems pretty good, it actually gets much worse.

Day 10: A new, rather abrupt level of hell. Yesterday was hard, with my phone use creeping back up. Today, I’m checking my phone so compulsively that I’m disgusted with myself. My adult pacifier. I can’t stop, even grabbing it right in the middle of my husband or child talking to me, like a heartless sociopath. Eyes seeing through everything right in front of me, damn near a trance. It feels like all progress is lost to this animal of dopamine insatiability, rearing its head with one last attempt to control me. I wasn’t prepared for it; I’m so taken off guard that I’m not utilizing any of usual de-stress techniques like calming music, box breathing, stretching, hell, even vacuuming works better than nothing for me. Despite wearing my breezy bohemian printed pants, I am anything but light. Cabinet doors slam behind me. I sound more like a drill sergeant, barking orders on deaf ears. Tapping my fingers trying not to touch my phone, again.

58 unread notifications on Substack

The children are just as amped up in the tornado of chaotic energy I’m bringing. I binge three chocolate cupcakes leftover from a birthday; what have I become? Insomnia bouts have popped up the last few days where I am awake in the night for at least two hours. I let my thoughts wander furiously instead of touching my phone, but the time feels rather torturous, tossing and turning in the bed. Roaming the dark hallway for water, staring out the large front window at empty, abstract shapes thinking of the whole world as mad as I am.

The feelings in me are of anger and anguish, a wound that’s not healing. My knowing that the apps I’m avoiding won’t give me what I want, because I have a deep need that is not being met by them: the need to belong, wholly and fully. I am a part of something, right? I try to see myself in more natural terms, this bizarre animal, conceptualizing the landscape I am living on, the terrain that stretches from my physical front door and wraps all the way around life on Earth. It connects via fine electrical filaments to the arid mental spaces occupied by people near and far, like wispy, shimmering pathways that lead us to each other, but only in part. This address, phone number, web name, given name, image, collection of thoughts/feelings/emotions/experiences dissolving into digital bytes, meaninglessly. An abstruse soup of words, light in sustenance, an appetizer for a meal that doesn’t come.

Desire, realization, confusion, loss. An eerie glow on my blank face, holding the device, head hung like defeat, defining. The bones begin to set in this shape, in this condition (ask a chiropractor). I give in to the game. I open a mom-friend finder app. No messages. Ping pong. Open my writer dashboard. No changes. Ping pong. Open email. Ping. Messages. Pong. Check weather. Check thermostat. Photos. Empty notion. Deplete. Deplete. Cry for help. Where am I in all of this?

It’s madness. This is evolution? I need something new. We need something new. Is this man’s greatest achievement, hand held infotainment, self-imposed isolation addiction as our rivers, lakes, and forests crumble and burn around us, the mother desecrated nearly beyond recognition? I’m not giving this habit to my children without a fight. Sickness or soul? A moment of silence essentially needs a plan of action in order to be deemed genuine. I must build from this hazardous space. Days to go: 11.

To be continued…

Hi, I want to hear from you: how long can you go without your phone, without social media, with strict limits on screen time? Is that even possible with your work? What happens when you put up parameters? Do you have limits for your kids? Is self-limiting our media a myth for some people, a myth for everyone? What is your “best self” daily time limit on phone use?