I Stopped Using My Phone In Public — and It Made All the Difference
At the beginning of 2023, I made some rules.
(1) I would reduce my screen time in public — aboard the subway, on campus, during walks, and everywhere else. (2) I would use my phone in public only for important communication and other necessities. (3) By doing this, I would overcome my phone addiction and reduce my overall screen time.
Those were my goals.
And this is what happened.
Clearer mind.
As a sensorily sensitive person, my mind is especially prone to feeling muddied and clouded if I spend too much time in front of a screen.
You might relate to this. It is a sense of disconnection, not just with the surrounding world, but with yourself. Like you are losing your self-control, emotionality, aspirations, and values — and filling your mind with hollow information and your calendar with empty time.
This feeling made me finally re-evaluate the time I had lost and re-define the time I had left. I strengthened my resolve to use my phone as an added asset instead of a necessary good. And it changed the way I felt.
I stopped feeling disconnected. Instead, I started feeling present — more autonomous and alive. Like I had opened a window and allowed the breeze to clear away the fog in my brain.
In a way, by reducing my screen time, everything seemed more real — as if I had brought myself to life by paying less attention to what was only online.
Connection with the world.
I looked up one day and noticed how vast and blue the sky really was.
I saw how intricate the roofs on the older buildings in Oslo were, their cream-white waves studded with faces and flowers. I felt how the breeze played with the fabrics of my dress as I walked down the calm avenue of my neighborhood. I distinguished between the smells of breads and cakes wafting from the open doors of a café.
I noticed these new details, simply because I was not distracting myself with the world inside my phone. I could truly and fully appreciate the sleeping and breathing nature around me. Life became less of a passive observation and more like an experience that I was partaking in.
It might sound silly, connecting with the present, but it is a necessary skill to have in a world that is otherwise so distracted. Being more aware of your surroundings can sharpen your mind and improve your focus. Moreover, it can elevate your mood and overall well-being.
Like the saying goes, it helps to stop sometimes to smell the flowers.
Increased focus.
Those aforementioned rules have also had an effect on my overall focus — as it should when you spend less time distracted by unimportant things.
Reducing screen time alone does not lend you the results you want. But it makes it much easier to get there, for sure. By decreasing the importance of your phone as a source of entertainment, you allow other things outside and inside to take hold of your focus.
This is important for several reasons. In today’s overstimulating world, this selective focus can help you dedicate energy and attention to the contents of your university lectures, group meetings, health appointments, and work sessions. This, in turn, garners purpose, patience, control, and discipline — because with focused input, you get quality output.
In my own experience, I also noticed that by spending less time on my phone outdoors made the distinctions between work, spare time, social hours, and commutes more clearly defined. This made each of my hours hold more purpose and promise specific, dedicated actions, even when I was not out in public.
In the end, this choice to refrain from distraction has allowed me to become more focused.
Social image and improved confidence.
I confess, I am more afraid of fitting in than standing out.
In Norway, where I live, this is very uncommon. Diverging from social conventions, either in appearance, personality, or behavior, often leads to ostracization or ridicule. When you stand out, people notice.
Therefore, you have a choice between cowardice and confidence. You can blend into the crowd or make an impression. I prefer choosing the second option — and in this case, I have made a reputation by spending my time outdoors reading books or talking to cats while everyone else seems glued to their phones.
By doing this, I send a signal. That I care less about keeping up with the urgencies of modern life than about going my own speed in the present. That I dare to be different.
And that I am not afraid to do so.
Quality time with friends and strangers.
I bring a book wherever I go.
One time, my book Sensitivity caught the attention of a woman on the tram. She found interest in the material, and shared that she was a therapist — the very profession I myself dream to have. This tiny act, of sitting down with a particular book instead of secluding myself in the world online, sparked a conversation in a place so normally packed with isolated bodies and vacant faces.
The same action — of choosing to stay present and making myself available, rather than disconnecting from my surroundings — has facilitated higher-quality interactions with my friends. I no longer pull up my phone to answer messages from other friends. I keep to the ones who are there in that moment, and hold much more engaging conversations than I could with brief bubbles of text.
These meaningful connections have only increased since I stopped pulling out my phone.
Managing boredom.
I am not bothered by boredom anymore.
Actually, I see it more as a gift than a nuisance. Boredom is an opportunity to evaluate your true priorities — the actions you are prone to taking when you lack an emotional motive for both entertainment and productive work.
Having rules that prevent me from pulling out my phone in public whenever I feel bored, I have needed to find other ways to pass time. Thus, while I wait for the subway to arrive, I watch the birds flocking the station. While I wait for my friend to come out of the bathroom, I make up dialogue between a pair of fictional lovers.
Few of these activities are particularly fun — but they make me more equipped to handle tedious tasks and times of boredom later down the line.
All the while, these activities reduce my feeling of dependency on my phone for entertainment.
Reduced screen time at home.
Reducing my screen time in public has been invigorating.
So invigorating, in fact, that doing important tasks at home now feels more rewarding to me than scrolling websites or watching videos. Therefore, even outside of my phone-free time in public, I feel more inclined to nourish my mind with books and exercise than the mind-numbing content online. Admittedly, this is in part because doing the latter would feel like ruining some invisible streak I have going on.
Since making this shift, though, my time on YouTube has decreased. My time on social media has plummeted. And the quality of my work has blossomed as a result of increased attention, focus, and prioritization.
After all, if I can abstain from checking my phone in public, I certainly have no need or desire to spend hours upon hours doing so at home.
There are simply more important — and fulfilling — things to do.
