The Election was “Rock-Bottom” in My Phone Addiction

A true story of electoral angst, lost self-control, and recovering from a ridiculous addiction

Photo by Stefan Cosma on Unsplash

Because you can’t see me write this, I’ll include a (tic-#) every time I think about reaching for my phone or inadvertently touch my empty pocket, with an accompanying footnote for why I did it.

Last week while election results trickled in like a chef plating rice one grain at a time, I started feeling a new tightness in my neck and strain in my eyes.

Every day unfolded like a democracy-fueled version of Groundhog Day — the routine played over and over:

I would wake up in the new-found dark of winter, then roll to the nightstand feeling my neck creak like a stiff refrigerator door. That didn’t happen last week, I’d partially register as I reached for my phone, carefully extending my arm to avoid tweaking the neck pain that had started on Election Day. Preemptively, I’d squint my eyes before the blinding blue glow of the screen lit up, blinking to focus more quickly. Can a phone recognize my face half-pressed into a pillow? It would always unlock, but I had no time to marvel; my thumbs were already scrambling for the browser app, skimming open tabs to find election results, and finally hovering over the refresh button before pressing.

Pause, feel anticipation swell, then strain to focus on the 8-figure vote tallies and try to remember what they were the previous night…is it different at all? Do they not count votes overnight?

(tic-1)

Then I’d enter a blurry montage of my morning routine: grab coffee, feed the cats, drift towards the shower, make an “unplanned” detour to refresh pages again. It’s already mid-morning on the east coast, someone has to know something new… Nothing. Press on with the day: imagine the siren call of a push notification while showering, check again (nothing), settle into my desk chair with a groan, take just one quick stretch of my oddly tight neck, Didn’t use to feel like that. Odd… Quickly give an update in my morning catch-up call with co-workers, then make a valiant effort to hear almost 2 other’s updates while my hand creeps to my pocket. Without even looking, I’d press the bottom of the protruding rectangle and smoothly slide my phone out once more. Still nothing? How many votes are even left to count?…Why is that information not more accessible? How can Pennsylvania count 100,000 ballots in the time Arizona counts 4? Surely there’s —

“Sorry, you broke up there, could you repeat the question?”

Hearing my name pierce through the fog would kick off a knee jerk reaction: ask for a repeat and blame the internet. Classic.

(tic-2)

Throughout the days, I’d set time limits on myself. No checking until 1PM…probably should check out the takes coming out of Twitter though…nothing til 3PM…Oh, Wordsmith251 hasn’t had any challenges on Words with Friends lately? I can change that…Is my computer screen asleep again? Jeez. (tic-3) Yet over and over I found my world reduced to the rectangle in my hand, blurring the rest of reality like I was seeing life in portrait mode.

By Thursday (9 days after Election Day), I had settled into both emotional exhaustion and an unnatural L-shape in my neck. Something had to change, and I finally did the unthinkable: checked my actual screen time hours on my phone to quantify my addiction. Instantly it verified what I already knew: I had become a slouching, glued-to-my-phone millennial caricature. Shame washed over me. Thinking back on how the week had slipped away, it was hard to hold my head up, both figuratively and literally. In fact, the scales had tipped so steeply that between sleeping and phone time, less than half of my life was spent focused on “the real world.” I felt like a stereotypical alcoholic character in a bad movie staring in a cracked mirror at a barely-recognizable face with a five o’clock shadow.

(tic-4)

To be clear, the election alone did not cause this. Screen time trend lines don’t lie: this problem has been growing for a long time. (tic-5) Currently, my phone is in time-out in a different room, and it is even more apparent in its absence how much I reach for it. (tic-6) This is not the first time I’ve worked on reducing screen time, but falling off the wagon with phone-time is more sneaky than getting coffee while cutting out caffeine. It’s hard to know when you’re slipping too far — that is until your neck is cricked and focusing on distances greater than 2 feet requires real effort. So I’ve gone cold-turkey to see what will happen.

A few days into my new-found freedom, I have become your incessant friend who is really getting into trail-running, or just cut meat out of their diet, or hasn’t had a drink since last Tuesday, or started waking up at 5AM, or just discovered the power of meditation, etc. You may be glad it’s working for me, but you’re already tired of hearing about how life-changing it is.

Or maybe you aren’t, just don’t text me about it — I need the break.

Footnotes (times while writing that I was tempted to check my phone):

1. I should probably close the tabs I opened last week.
2. Just heard the “bing” of a new email. Middle of the day on a weekend, probably something I should look at immediately… Oh, just spam?
3. The cats are asleep, but unlike thousands of other naps, this one is definitely picture worthy.
4. Got a text.
5. NYT push notification. The Boy Scouts of America have how many sex-abuse claims?!?
6. No particular reason this time. Just dragging my feet on writing a conclusion.