Anti-tok

It started out with me wanting to limit my screen time because I felt like I was either on my phone or thinking about my phone constantly. I looked into screentime limits which were so easy to get around, I then looked into the dumb phones with I loved the idea of, but got dragged back down to earth when someone reminded me we all need smartphones to access most authenticator apps which just wouldn’t work for me, and the final thing I looked at was the brick. It’s a little device that ‘bricks’ your phone when you tap it and will only unlock once you tap it again. This sounded great until I realised there is literally no workaround if you get caught stranded somewhere and need to unlock for any reason.

The dumb phone was the option I liked the most out of this list as I am a very all or nothing type of person so not having the temptation at all was what I wanted. The other options were fine but still allowed me to access the apps I was trying to avoid. At the root of it I wanted to stop scrolling between 4 apps every evening, staring at the screen hoping for a dopamine hit. The dumb phone was my fave option because it eliminated my access to these, but also limited any access to other apps which I use to chat to people.

So I made my phone a dumb phone

In March I deleted all the apps I didn’t want to scroll anymore and honestly it has been great. I didn’t realise how much tiktok had been rotting my brain until I couldn’t access it anymore. My memory and concentration immediately improved and I felt myself becoming more conversational because my references weren’t random tiktoks I remembered.

I caved once and redownloaded tiktok and was quickly reminded why I deleted it in the first place. The first video I saw was a girl holding a rabbit, crying that the vet had accidentaly broken his leg. I watched 10 other videos to make sure the rabbit was ok and still think about the video a lot. The problem with algorithms like this is that you don’t get to choose what you want to see, I would never have sought out a video of an injured rabbit.

This leads me on to some other thoughts I have been having about media.

I have been trying to live more analogue. I bought a film camera and it is my favourite thing to document life. I love that it gets people out of their insecurities and perfectionism and into just having a quick snap in the moment and forgetting about it once it’s done. It is what it is and that’s the beauty of it. My favourite film at the moment is kodak ektar, it gives a nostalgic feel to the photos which is exactly what I was after.

With the success of film photography I wanted to make more of my hobbies analogue and moved from designing on screen to painting. I’ve painted quite a few things so far and really enjoy experimenting with new mediums. This is one of the problems though, with designing on a computer I can create literally anything with a few apps, whereas painting requires a lot of kit.

I sit on a computer designing for 8 hours a day and didn’t like the idea of staring at a screen in the evenings too, but painting is such an effort that I end up not really doing it often and end up doing nothing creative.

I’ve decided to compromise here and instead of seeing screens as bad and analogue as good, I feel like there is a more nuanced way of looking at things. It’s the fast vs slow angle that I think we should take into consideration more than purely online vs IRL. Spending an hour on a laptop creating a beautiful birthday card is as good as creating a physical card and I am not limited by my resources.

The fast vs slow angle has been great for helping me decide which apps to keep and which websites I am happy to visit during screen time. If something is created or consumed fast then it’s something I like to avoid. I don’t want to be overloaded with low value noise, and instead spend my screen time looking at more thoughtful content.

In an age where we are constantly told to create as much as possible as fast as possible I want to leave with one thought that has been defining my year so far.

Do less, do better.