The idea of an iPhone deprivation experiment is simple in retrospect. Basically all I had to do was not use my iPhone for an extended period of time. Easy right? Actually, not so much. So my experiment was to go from Saturday morning until Sunday afternoon without using my, or any other iPhone. To prep for this detox I turned my Mac on do not disturb to make sure I wasn’t tempted to check text messages, and I told my parents/siblings I wouldn't have my phone on for the next two days. Here’s how it went down.
Day One:
The first day wasn’t as terrible as I imagined it to be. I noticed that I was constantly reaching into my pocket to get my phone to check the time. There were a few other times throughout the afternoon that I was thinking "man I could tweet this or snapchat that," but it was easy to adjust as the day went on.
The worst part was not being able to check my email as frequently as I normally do and not getting to update my finsta for two whole days. (A finsta is basically a fake Instagram account that you make to poke fun at yourself and your friends.) I use mine as more of a blog with funny pictures of myself, so it was hard for me to not update my small group of followers about how my day was going.
My roommates and I had a little Valentine’s get together in our dorm that night, so I was preoccupied most of the day getting everything set up. I was surprised at how relieved I was to not feel compelled to check my phone or be holding it at all times.
During our small celebration I noticed that I was kind of forced to be more social and I loved it! Whenever conversation died down I wasn't able to put up my phone wall and check my social media to make myself look busy and it was a freeing experience. The only not so hot thing about my phone being MIA that night was the lack of pictures and snapchats sent, but if that’s the worst thing to come out of this, I think I’m alright with that. Plus—I got some really cute V-day Polaroid photos of me and my roomies that are way better than a pic on my phone in my opinion.
Day Two:
So today was A LOT harder than day one. My friends and I didn’t have anything going on because it was raining all day, so it was incredibly hard to keep myself distracted and off my phone. I found myself looking to check my phone a lot more often than the first day because I stayed in my dorm for almost the whole day.
I got brunch with my sister that morning at Mom's in Astoria, which was a really nice start to my already long day. When I got home I pushed through and ended up watching a decent amount of Netflix on my laptop, read a book, and did some yoga. I was so much more productive than I would ever normally be on a Sunday because I wasn’t sitting around looking at cookie decorating videos for hours on end. And lets be real, you can only watch so much Netflix in one sitting.
Final Thoughts:
I highly recommend this detox 2-day phone detox to anyone that’s feeling overwhelmed with social media. I had no idea how much I actually use my phone on a day-to-day basis, especially in terms of how often I check social media. But after this experiment, I'm definitely going to try to tone it down and really relax and have more me time. If you’re trying to get out of any type of funk this is a good way to do it.