On FOMO and Smartphones

And we're done. After 30 days, Experimental June is ending.

In case you forgot what this is all about, here are the rules I wanted to follow:

• No social networks with timelines or algorithms

• YouTube only as a search engine, or if a link is shared

• All content must come via RSS, email, or directly from a human

• No online news. If I want to know what's going on, I'll grab a newspaper (thankfully, I work for one)

• No podcasts

• No phone while doing anything else

• Daily screen time limit: two hours (Manu picked that number; I might hate him by June 30)

I think I broke all of them at least once. Very early on, I realized where this was heading and what my learnings would look like. And so I simply started adopting the changes early.

Before I started with this experiment, I wanted to figure out one thing and prove another: Would I suffer from FOMO, and could I live without my smartphone? I think the answers are no, and yesn't.

About FOMO

Unlike Manu, I didn't completely dial down all my inputs, simply because I still wanted to write the newsletter for overkill. But if there is one thing this experiment proved to me is that there is nothing to miss out on. Most of what happens online simply isn't so important that you need to stay up-to-date day by day. If something truly important happens, someone somewhere will tell you, and then you can always decide if you want to dig deeper or not. And I'd like to argue that most of that stuff isn't even worth digging deeper.

Social media, algorithms, influencers, all make it seem like whatever happens right now is the most important thing in that moment, and you definitely shouldn't miss out, but that's because their incentives force them to operate in such a way. The companies and people can't make money if you don't give them your attention. And attention is the most important currency we all have, but we spend it lavishly on some random crap.

We all should be cultivating ignorance more, but that's for another blog post.

On living without a smartphone

Before the end, I picked up YouTube again. I also listened to a podcast or two while driving for seven hours. I even posted to social media a few times (but I can say I did not consume content).

There is a time and space for all these things. If you actively decide to interact with one of these media in that exact moment, and you do so mindfully, I don't see any problems. Heck, I'd argue that this is exactly the way we are supposed to use this. The point never was to become a hermit who doesn't partake in modern society, but to live on your terms.

The issues I have with all this lie in the mindless, automatic behaviour, where you pick up one of these things to fight boredom. I used to do that a lot. I probably still do that way too often.

But now I also try to sit with the boredom for at least a little while, or alternatively, grab a thing I deem more worth my time. During June, I finished seven books. I also actively wrote stuff by hand in one of my notebooks, often to come back to it later (while it's great to have all the world's knowledge in your pocket at all times, it's also ok to not know a thing immediately). And I meditated, near daily, after a year-long hiatus.

Before all this, I thought the smartphone was the bane of my existence. Everything that bothered me about myself had its origin in my smartphone use, so the answer clearly was to try and actively fight it, or look towards a dumbed-down solution.

But what this does is give this little thing too much power. I hand over my agency to a piece of glass and metal, and throw up my hands, saying that I am fighting an unfair fight and that none of this is my fault in the first place; I am but a poor human being, and something something trillion-dollar companies.

Sorry, me, but that's bullshit. That is an excuse to not work on the true underlying issue, which is that I hate being bored, and the smartphone is the quickest fix. And I hate being bored because being bored means I have to sit with my thoughts, and I am afraid of what I might find there. Though during this experiment, I realized that there is nothing to be afraid of anyway, thanks to therapy and years of work.

Actually, I got my best ideas while being bored.

Experimental June: The End

So, where does this leave me now?

I will probably embark on more of these experiments, all to challenge my default states. All to figure out if the things I am doing, out of habit or not, are worth it in the first place. And I think I already know what the next one will be, but it's not July yet, so no spoilers.