Limiting My Screen Time for a Week [an Experiment]

At approximately 11:39 p.m. on Saturday, April 25th, I had a crazy thought — what if I tried not to use my phone for an entire week? Is this even possible, I thought to myself. Long story short, nah. But I could perhaps try to limit my screen time. As I tapped into my phone’s Screen Time settings, curiosity quickly turned into horror as I saw:

Damn. I’m spending a little over 6 hours a day looking at my phone — almost 45 hours a week. Here are some sobering statistics on what that number means:

• I’m awake for 14 hours a day, so 45 hours in a week equates to a little more than 3 waking days
• Assuming I am productive at work for 6 hours a day, I’m spending almost all my remaining waking time on a phone
• 6 hours a day = 2190 hours a year = 156 waking days = over 5 waking months (imagine waking up, using your phone all day, going to sleep, and repeating this for 5 months straight)

Something had to be done about this. So at 11:59 p.m., I turned off my phone. I aimed for a screen time average of 1 hour for the next week. Here are my journal entries for what transpired for the week.

Day 1

• As soon as I woke up, I reached for my phone. It has become routine for me to pick up my phone immediately after waking up. Luckily, I had put it on my desk.
• There are so many times I wish I had my phone — in the shower (music), while eating (YouTube), while going for a walk (podcast/music), while washing dishes (YouTube/music), etc.
• I missed a call from home because I had put my phone on silent.
• Since 11 a.m., I did laundry, washed dishes, showered, meditated for half an hour, called my dad, called my sister, threw out trash, cleaned some areas of the apartment, and watered my plants. It’s currently 2 p.m. This would have normally taken me a whole day.
• So. Many. Mental. Conversations.
• I keep checking what time it is only to see I’m off by 2–3 hours.
• I’m b.o.r.e.d. out of my mind.
• I ended up using my phone to answer some messages.
• I had to catch up with a friend I hadn’t talked to in a while. The conversation lasted 2 hours. I guess this is fine?
• Screen time was 2 hours, 36 mins.

Day 2

• I woke up at 8 a.m. and started work around 10. I had breakfast before 10. On a regular day, I tend to start work around 11:30.
• I was extremely focused on work.
• I breezed through everything and had a lot of free time. I used my PC to answer messages instead of my phone so I have a clear objective.
• It felt like a LONG day.
• I keep looking back at the day thinking “wow, I did that today??”.
• I played a game on my PC, caught up with a friend via phone call, and watched a show.
• I want to read a book.
• I have nothing to do.
• I ordered a book.
• My screen time today was < 30 mins! I got back 6 hours today.

Day 3

• More focused at work.
• I realized that I kept using my phone during work and throughout the day to escape my problems. When things became stressful, I always turned to my phone to offer me some excitement because I couldn’t handle the current reality. However, this was a negative feedback loop as stress led to using phone, which led to more stress after realizing I wiped away 20 minutes of my life while the problems stayed there. Now, I don’t use my phone to escape and am forced to just deal with problems at the moment. This saves me so much time.
• I keep getting surprised at how much time is still left in the day.
• Phone calls and messages with friends are more meaningful because they’re less frequent and I’m more mindful.
• I have an urge to create. Maybe write something. Or draw something. Or take a photograph of something interesting. I created a list of things I want to do.
• I keep powering through my To-Do’s (work and personal).
• Screen time was 30 mins.

Day 4

• I couldn’t get enough sleep yesterday night. I feel extremely lethargic.
• I ended up using my PC more today. Less social media but more YouTube.
• I just realized I haven’t charged my phone at all since this challenge began (phone was at 100% start of challenge).
• It’s 9 p.m. and I’m going to head to bed. Normally, I would’ve spent the next two hours using my phone. But there’s nothing to do except sleep.
• Screen time was 57 mins.

Day 5

• I just slept for 10 hours!
• I woke up feeling super energized and refreshed.
• I went to the grocery store. The walk was very peaceful as I wasn’t zoned out listening to music.
• I’ve been meditating consistently this week.
• I realized that the tasks I usually put off aren’t the issue. It’s the resistance of starting. I don’t want to start because I know there’s something more enjoyable I could do (e.g. games, social media, YouTube, Reddit, music, etc.). However, once I start the task, I never regret it even while completing the task.
• Just grinding out a bunch of things for work and outside of work.
• Missed out on two phone calls. I also missed out on virtual poker games.
• Screen time was 33 mins.

Day 6

• A good morning was ruined when I mindlessly used my phone for almost an hour immediately after waking up.
• While talking to coworkers and friends, I realized that I read a lot of news this week and had a lot of topics to discuss with them. It’s funny because I thought I was always up to date since I was constantly on my phone but the one week I tried to limit my phone use, I ended up knowing more about current events.
• Work is so stressful today.
• So many urges to check my phone today. Luckily, I did not do so after that ginormous hour in the morning.
• Screen time was 1 hour, 4 mins.

Day 7

• I caught up with the friend I couldn’t talk to on Day 5.
• I looked at a few websites to see where I should write my blog.
• Currently writing this.
• Will I continue to limit my screen time today? Hmm, great question.

So that’s it. That was my experience trying to aggressively limit my screen time for a week. How did I do, you ask? Well’s here’s the result:

I barely made it under an hour average screen time. I’m sure if I did not have that 2 hour FaceTime call on Day 1, the average would be much lower. But do I regret that call? Absolutely not — I regret not using my phone certain times during the week.

Things I missed out on:

• A couple of phone calls I wouldn’t have wanted to miss
• Virtual poker nights with friends
• Sending the latest memes to my friends
• A few Houseparty calls and games

Going forward, I’m going to try to use my phone with a purpose. Mindlessly using my phone for hours on end on a never-ending quest to find something exciting sheds away hours of my life. There are a few things I would have loved to be there for, but there are way more things that I didn’t get to be there for that turned out for the better.