busybee fluffy rambles

A bit over 10 years ago I got tired of the high price of cellphone plans and the pervasiveness of obnoxious notifications, and switched my communications to a voice-over-IP provider, an iPod Touch, and a cheap mobile WiFi access point (and a flip phone for emergency contact). It was actually a really nice way to be, until I took a trip to DC for Song Fight! Live and it was super difficult to coordinate with friends, not to mention inconvenient when I had to actually do anything with it (Jukka can speak to just how comical it was at times). I eventually gave up and went back to smartphones when the iPhone 6 came out.

I’ve also had many periods when I’ve gotten overwhelmed by social media and had to go on a “diet.” During one of these I started using the iOS “Screen Time” functionality to limit myself to 15 minutes per day of social media. At first this was super annoying, but over time I’ve hit the daily limit less and less often, and when I do hit it, it’s not a big deal. (I still use it way too much from my computer, though.)

It’s been super helpful for me to uninstall the apps I don’t actually need (although there’s a bunch I keep installed “just in case” which is something I should reevaluate), disable notifications (or switch to scheduled notifications) for the ones that don’t have actual urgency, and especially turn off the Apple News alerts. I mostly use Discord and text messages to keep in touch with folks I’m meeting up with, and generally limit how much I’m using them from the phone anyway (although that’s more for chronic pain reasons than attention reasons).

I still spend way too much time at the computer and watching YouTube and the like, and that’s something I really want to work on. In some ways it’s been beneficial that YouTube has been ramping up their anti-adblocker stuff, since it’s getting a lot less convenient to watch YouTube in an ad-free way lately. On the days when SmartTube isn’t working I seem to actually get more things done. Go figure.

Sometimes I think it’d be good to go back to a flip phone and an iPod for all my stuff. But I’m not sure it would make that much of a difference to my life.