How I manage my screen time

I saw this as the WordPress daily prompt, and it immediately resonated with me. Managing my screen time is something I have been challenging for a while, even before I got my first smart phone in 2016. Even before I got a smartphone I was always spending time on YouTube, and while it provided a respite from loneliness I felt in school, it cut into a lot of my sleep time and study time. I haven’t learned to manage my computer time yet, but I’m starting with monitoring how much time I spend on my cell phone. I use the Digital Well Being app on my phone to mark how much time I have spent and it also categorizes the time I spent on different apps, such as YouTube, text messages and email. I usually write down how much screen time I spend each day, and while it’s still a work in progress for me to not just grab my cell phone and scroll the news or YouTube, being aware of how I am using my phone and for how much is a small step that I’m taking to make sure I do other activities outside of looking at my phone all day. Although I do use YouTube to watch movies and exercise because there are a lot of great exercise videos. I also listen to music on YouTube. I can’t completely cut myself off the grid right now, that would be pretty tough. I tried in college. I cut my phone off pretty frequently and my family couldn’t reach me no matter how many times they called. I am slowly learning how to communicate better and more frequently. It is still a work in progress though. I think keeping track of my phone use has been beneficial. I think I started doing it more after reading How to Break Up with Your Phone by Catherine Price and listening to Catherine Price do a podcast episode with Vivek Murthy about phone use.

Author: The Arts Are Life

I am a writer and musician. Lover of music, movies, books, art, and nature. View all posts by The Arts Are Life