Tag: screen time

My Weird Way to Cut Down on Social Media

It’s only kind of weird, but it works for me the problem is that my phone thinks I look hours and hours at it, when, in fact, I’m not even near the phone. It’s hard to doomscroll if your phone is nowhere nearby and the computer you’re using is only connected to LinkedIn (and honestly, ten minutes is plenty to determine who’s been laid off lately).

I’d rather just look at this guy

I still enjoy social media, but do a quick Facebook check in the morning, play with my Finch self-care app for 20 minutes, see if I got any personal email, then walk away.

Also doing my nails creates at least an hour of phone-free time.

That’s because I leave the phone outside listening to birds once I have to stop birding with my own eyes and ears. The phone may think I’m staring at Merlin Bird ID, but no, I just check in periodically. Any texts or other messages just have to wait.

Today’s bird was this Ruby-crowned Kinglet, as photographed on the phone. blurry.

I can work undisturbed by my online social life except in breaks. That’s helped me from going down rabbit holes and letting myself get upset.

But it’s nice in here! (AI image)

In the evenings, I read other people’s blogs and news sources that don’t try to get me all upset. This all works for me. I can still stay informed and keep up with friends without it consuming my day. This gives me time for horses, birds, domestic fowl, and wildflowers, not to mention friends and family!

She’s talking about us. We are domestic fowl.

So, my social media trick is to get your phone all busy doing something for you and ignore it for a good chunk of your day. It makes checking for messages and updates a fun interlude, not the whole day.

Morning fog on the window screen. It got very foggy this evening, too.

Today I enjoyed many things while the phone was ignored. I took some autumn photos, for one thing.

Pretty day! The yellow is a willow trees.

I watched a new run for the chickens and Connie get worked on. Connie was not impressed and tried to scare away the noisy dudes by gobbling and displaying her magnificent feathers. I didn’t even know hen turkeys could do that!

Stakes show outline of the new space.

I also ended up with time to work with horses a bit longer than usual, so I picked out all the burs in Drew’s mane and tail. He was a true gentleman during the process. I think he’s feeling better.

No burs on me!

In the evening Lee and I got a new coffeemaker, which is exactly like our previous one, only not worn out. We look forward to coffee tomorrow. I also got a slightly better toaster that should be less likely to burn my thick bread. These are our holiday gifts to each other.

So clean and shiny

We treated ourselves to dinner in a “real” restaurant and made our server very happy by forgiving him for not realizing we were his table. I had a magnificent beer and some salmon, which means I had a great Saturday with little phone time…until now, when I’m writing this.

Yum!

My Weird Relationship with Screens

How do you manage screen time for yourself?

Look, I’ve been earning my pay looking at computer screens, well, since they were invented (though I did work as a copy editor and proofreader using pencil and paper for a while). And I was an early handheld device adopter—playing Bejeweled on my Palm Pilot was a great stress reliever during my divorce.

Red pencils. Proofreader tools. Photo from Pexels.

This is to say, I have a good bit of screen experience (of course I have had television since Lassie was on every Sunday). I can’t avoid computer screens as long as I have paid employment in my field of tech writing, but I can try to limit phone use. Hey! I could stop blogging on my phone! Yes! No. It’s fun.

I used one of these babies. Monochrome display! Photo from Pexels.

You’d think my nature hobbies would help me escape screens, but the phone comes with me to take all my photos. But, hooray for me, since I’ve taken to leaving my phone outside listening to birds on Merlin Bird ID, I can’t doom scroll for many hours. Weird but it works. Of course, the phone thinks I’m looking at is and racks up time that makes me look glued to the phone, but I’m not!

And of course I read a lot and do all those crafts. So I’m okay with my screen time. Oh, and I make sure not to open up my Finch self-care app more than 2-3 times a day. One can get sucked in.

Apparently I have used Finch every day since I got it, though.

My point? I don’t think looking at screens is a terrible problem for me. If I’m learning, earning money, interacting with friends, or seeing the beauty in the world, screens do me good. My area of caution is to not read or watch content designed to upset me or insult me. I read one or two posts a day from my incendiary friends (both left and right), then I just move on as soon as I see where content is headed.

That’s it. I just stop. Over generalizing about groups or factions? I keep moving. Mean? Skip. Blatantly wrong but not open to other viewpoints? No response. It works. Now I mostly see trees, horses, chickens, yarn, jokes, and for some reason makeup for “mature” skin (which I don’t wear). Just don’t engage unless you think you can accomplish something.

Enough of that. I would have shared how nice the spot we are staying in at Blanco State Park is, but by the time we figured out the latest issue with Seneca the motorhome and I finished working, it was dark. Ugh. The chassis battery is dead. We could recharge it by starting the generator, but that hasn’t worked for months. Have I mentioned that recreational vehicles are prone to breaking? Yes. It’s true.

Attractive sycamore leaf

So yay, we are camping with no air conditioning! So primitive! And no TV! (too dark to set up the system). No, we are just fine, other than the occasional acorn dropping on the roof.