Day 1 of trying to get the upper hand on a phone addiction

This writing is a scan and upload of a hand written journal entry as part me trying to fix a real problem I'm having with my phone.

It started from me watching this video by Arthur Brooks that gave me some tools. Like most fixes to our lives, nothing presented is complicated or even new information, but tools only work when we’re open to them.

1. First tool, no phone for the first hour of the day. I already started doing this and it has a big impact, I feel more connected to real life. It also gives me time to journal by hand.
2. Then, I turned my phone to greyscale and lowered the white point. I can't believe what a big difference this made. When the phone is grey, it’s boring.

Which led me to boredom

Boredom is the true thing I'm avoiding I think. Im not even talking about the type of boredom people must feel when they get locked in solitary confinement for weeks on end, I'm talking about boredom so trivial and short that it's embarrassing that I can't sit for 20 minutes by myself in a quite room without a device.

When I was doing excessive drugs and alcohol, I thought it was because I was an addict. I kinda am, but more than that, I’m an extrovert. I want to be around people 24/7, and in your 20s people hang out at bars at night.

I think boredom avoidance is difficult for our culture to deal with because it's not a sickness or disease and it doesn't have a diagnosis. It's not ADHD, not depression, not PTSD or autism. It's not something to be cured, and we hate this.

Long form boredom is a bit annoying but it makes my brain turn, and eventually I get creative. Annoyed and creative causes me to leave the house and go do something. But if I don't get to that long form boredom, if I just cure it with a quick fix of a colorful phone game or a doomscroll so I can avoid any and all interruption in stimulation into my brain then I find myself wasting precious hours of life.

Anger and admission

3. In AA, the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem. This phone thing is a real problem. So this week I’ve been admitting it to myself and to friends. It's painful, it’s cathartic, and it also creates accountability. When people know you want to change, they can support you.

Side note: Peter McKinnon, who I love, made a video of him having the same problem, and journaling being a reasonable part of the solution.

4. I change most through anger and anger is a good tool for me. This phone thing makes me angry because it's the most valuable tool humanity has ever created and I love it and I use it to waste enormous amounts of my potential. I have gifts, talents and things to say to the world. Things to create, problems to solve, and people to serve. Only a fraction of my potential is getting utilized because I'm spending hours of my days in this distracted stasis. It has to stop

Being addicted to the phone is like when Cypher asked to get plugged into the Matrix voluntarily but instead wanting to be a rich and famous actor I just go in and play a puzzle and watch other people live. It's not much different than driving a few hour commute to work every day and not getting paid for it. Fucking useless.

David Foster Wallace, of course

Boredom was a common topic for my hero DFW. Infinite Jest was mostly about where to place our attention in relationship to addiction and poorly chosen goals, his posthumous book "The Pale King" was apparently primarily about boredom and a world of bureaucracy - so now I must read it.

In the meantime, here is a short video that describes much of how I'm feeling

Anyone else have this?

Is this helpful? Do you want to read the Pale King with me? lol 😂
I'll post my results in a week and see if things are improving!