How I Regained My Sense of Self by Giving Up Screen Time

Carson Jones

Over the past two years, I’ve slowly deleted every app on my phone that makes me want to use it. It all began with TikTok, which I found to be the most obvious source of distress (and wasted time), and was followed by Instagram, Reddit, and any other app that promoted excessive scrolling. This even included Depop and will soon be followed by Pinterest, once I can bear to part with it.

It was pretty embarrassing how difficult it was to decrease my usage of all of these apps. I always saw myself as someone who wasn’t chained to my phone, but the struggles I experienced with weaning myself off of short-form content proved otherwise. TikTok was a one-and-done type deal, but with Instagram, I found myself redownloading it once every week when I was bored and couldn’t think of anything else to do.

And that was the problem: I needed to learn to sit with my boredom and find a real, tangible solution for it, rather than freezing my brain in its overstimulated, empty-yet-full state. Scrolling was a way for me to postpone thinking. But one of the wonderful things about being human is being able to think in such profound ways, no matter how uncomfortable it makes you.

We have memories we can dive back into, futures we can plan, and emotions we can relive over and over through our thoughts. Yes, it can be overwhelming at times, but it’s even more overwhelming to ignore what our brains were meant to do. I can’t imagine looking back on this time in my life and knowing it was dedicated to scrolling rather than experiencing and processing the complex emotions that come along with being a 19-year-old in her first year of college. The memories of these years shouldn’t be clouded by anything else.

Learning to handle the discomfort of really thinking and processing again was like reverting to my childhood state, where I thought so much that there wasn’t much time for anything else. All of a sudden, my brain was occupied with so many thoughts I had been suppressing, most of them discomforting, that I couldn’t do anything else.

Thankfully, this state only lasted about a week or two, because brains are meant to be brains and are meant to think, to ponder, to feel, to remember, to plan. It wasn’t like learning a new skill; it was reverting to an old one, a natural state. I had remembered the importance of taking time throughout the day to simply sit with one’s thoughts: no music, no form of entertainment, just quiet. For the brain to work well we need to let it breathe.

After I had established a pretty consistent anti-phone-time routine, I felt as if I was gaining a sense of self back. It’s difficult to differentiate between your own passions and the passions of everyone else when you have apps telling you what you should think. After a few weeks of being on my own, however, I found that I began to admire a lot of things from my childhood again—before I had a phone.

I remembered what it was like to be creative and make art and why I used to spend time doing that–to create meant to give myself a purpose and give life a meaning. What better way to appreciate my existence than by tangibly capturing it through colored pencils, iMovies, and written stories?

I remembered what it was like to wear polka dots and to wear the bracelet I saved up for for weeks when I was eight. I remembered what it was like to go outside and take in the world around me without a camera lens or song lyric dictating my perception. I remembered what it was like to be bored, and the active role the brain plays in combating that.

I started thinking about how my childhood self would see me throughout different phases of my life, and so far, I think this is the one she’d be the most proud of. I’m true to myself and true to her, and I honor her passions and interests while still growing as a person. Without apps, games, and posts clouding my brain, I made room for all the versions of myself I used to be and dedicated a special part in my brain to each of them.

I have so much time. I’m far more social than I used to be. I’m more creative, I’m more observant, and I truly do believe that the world is a better place to live in once you’re actually acknowledging your place in it.

One day, when I have a stable career, living situation, and friendships, I think I’ll switch over completely to a phone that can only perform basic functions like calling, texting, playing music, and giving directions. I’ll be the aunt who doesn’t freely give out the WiFi password and who has amassed a huge DVD collection, or the grandma who collects junky mugs and raises chickens and goats in her backyard.

I’ll spend more time truly living as a human being than simply just perceiving myself as one.