If you follow me on the social media platforms X or Bluesky, you may have noticed I haven't been as active in recent months as I used to. In May, I announced that I would uninstall their mobile apps from my phone to reduce the aimless time I spent online. The announcement came as part of my wider Phone as a Utility initiative, which I began to make my use of digital services more intentional in a world where every service and platform competes to capture as much of our attention as possible. It's been a few months now, and as promised, I want to share more about my efforts, why I'm making them, and how the experience has been so far.
It shouldn't surprise anyone that so many people of all ages are addicted to their phones these days. For the most part, you cannot look in any direction in public anymore without seeing at least someone scrolling on a social media platform, and that greatly saddens me. I'm not trying to insinuate that all of social media is bad; it lets people communicate and keep up with others' lives, no matter where they are in the world, and it can be a lifeline for people who would otherwise be isolated. However, this new social norm of scrolling the moment you have a second of downtime has to stop. Social media can be a powerful tool when harnessed right, but if it's not, or if it harnesses you, it can drain your soul unlike anything else, and we're already seeing the effects in people of all ages. That is why I decided to implement these changes in my life. I want technology, the internet, and social media to be great parts of my life that benefit me, but I also want a life beyond them, and I don't want to fall victim to their increasingly predatory practices.
I thought deeply about what would be ideal for me, and I modeled my approach on how technology and social media are depicted in video games, television, and movies. In television shows and movies of any quality, you don't see technology that often, and when it does appear, it's used to move the plot forward or let characters communicate. As for video games, I focused on one in particular. In the video game Animal Crossing: New Horizons, your character is given a smartphone from the beginning, and you use it to do things like take in-game screenshots, check the materials required to craft recipes, see how far you have progressed in various item collections, help communicate with other players when using the multiplayer functionality, and rescue your character if you become lost or stuck somewhere. The in-game smartphone is an important component of the video game, but it is still strictly only a utility used to assist gameplay. This is how I envision my smartphone: a utility that lets me capture moments wherever I am, communicate with others, and check important things, like my email and calendar. I don't envision my phone as an entertainment device. If I want to watch something or play a video game, I'll do so on my computer or television, not on my phone, which I keep in my desk drawer while home, out of sight, to prevent unintended use. If I want to log in to social media, I'll do so in my computer's web browser, which creates many more barriers than the platforms' mobile apps. And when I do, to further trim the time I spend online, I stay on the "following" feeds, which show only posts from the people I explicitly select, rather than the algorithmic "for you" alternative.
Of course, I make a few exceptions. For instance, I keep the mobile game Crossy Road on my phone because it's fun to play occasionally, especially when I'm without an internet connection. I also briefly log in to my social media accounts through my phone's web browser while traveling or in exceptional circumstances to stay connected. Furthermore, I keep a very tight selection of entertainment mobile apps on my phone for utility purposes only while away from my computer and television, and on rare occasions I use the social platforms' algorithmic feeds to see posts outside my selection and meet new people. I'm not ashamed to make or admit these few exceptions because I trust myself to maintain the boundaries I've established. I also keep a few non-utility mobile apps related to my hobbies and interests installed on my phone, like the writing app I use to compose all my blog posts and the flight-tracking app Flightradar24.
As I considered what would be ideal for me, I also weighed alternative routes to the one I chose. These included removing social media from my life entirely, which many people do live without, and trading in my smartphone for a traditional flip phone, which many people still use. I ultimately chose not to pursue these, however, because they would require compromises and sacrifices I am not willing to make, and they would infringe too much on what I have become accustomed to. For example, removing social media from my life entirely would mean losing touch with many friends across the country and abroad whom I met online and care deeply about. As for the flip phone alternative, switching would mean losing access to all the mobile apps I mentioned above and much of the core smartphone functionality I've come to take for granted, like taking high-quality photos and videos. The more I considered the alternative, the longer the mental laundry list of things I would miss out on and have to change my behavior around became.
Since publicizing my announcement on social media and implementing my Phone as a Utility initiative, my overall morale has improved greatly. I have reclaimed so much mental capacity by no longer consuming whatever an algorithm decides to show me regularly, and I feel unbelievably connected to the real world and present moment again. My brain feels noticeably more refreshed and clear than before, and I'm the happiest I have been in a long time. I feel wonderful, and like I can finally move on with my real life while remaining connected to what and who matters to me online. I would even argue my changes have helped bolster my overall health.