Since Christmas, I’ve been making it a goal to be more disconnected from my phone, and social media. I know it’s not that original of an aim, but I think that I’ve been doing pretty well with it. With how purposefully addictive technology has been designed, I’m trying to take back my attention span, because it’s completely shot. I find that I can barely pay attention to a book for as long as I used to. Now, I can’t say I’m going completely analog because that’s nearly impossible in this day and age and it would be incredibly hypocritical saying that on an online blog post, especially when so many aspects of my life are online, but I’m doing my best to minimize my time on social media specifically. I’ve implemented a lot of tools to do so, like using single-purpose tech instead of the swiss army knife lodged in my gut all the time (my phone). I’ve disabled all of my notifications except for texts, calls, and emails, and I’ve set up a grey-scale filter on my screen so that my phone looks just as soul-sucking as it feels. I’ve also installed an app called OLauncher that is designed to remove all of the colorful app icons that distract me so easily. It’s set up so that I only have 5 apps readily available on my homescreen, and the rest are hidden in a tray, all formatted as lists so that there’s no pretty images to grab my attention. I’ve also Marie Kondo’ed my apps. Anything that is not a genuinely helpful tool has been removed from my phone, no games, no shopping apps, nothing except for what I actively use every day. If I don’t use it in more than a week, I delete it and redownload it again in the future if I need to.
Another thing I’ve done is I’ve bought myself an off-brand IPod to keep all of my music on. I’ve cancelled my subscriptions and have started buying my music myself. It’s much more costly, I’ll admit, but at the end of the day, I’ll never lose the license to access music that I truly own. Buying off of apps like Bandcamp also comes with the added bonus of knowing that I’m directly supporting the artists I’m listening to, rather than a monthly fee being divvied up into fractions of a cent for each artist I listen to, with the lion’s share going to a corporation. While it’s not a perfect system, I really enjoy having so much agency over things that mean so much to me. I’m also very excited about the personalization I’ve done. While the Innioasis Y1 is a great device out of the box, I’ve downloaded a program called RockBox. RockBox is designed to bring new life to old IPods, but since it’s main goal is accessibility and improvement, it has been developed for the Y1 as well!
Going analog is completely impossible for me currently, but I’m doing my best to be more mindful about my media consumption and tech interactions. I’ve noticed that I’m much less pessimistic than I used to be because of it, and I’m so much more okay with missing a text or a phone call when it used to make me panic. This really felt like a slap to the face when I remember what every mom on earth has said to their child: “It’s that damn phone.” I really do think that we have the power to step away from being mindless phone zombies, if we’ll only try. I hope this inspires you to be a little bit more present in your life and set down the phone once in a while.
I think the idea of going analog is so interesting!! I’ve noticed so many people in our generation want to go back in time, sometimes to a world that they even didn’t consciously live through. I’m sure removing yourself from so much technology can be difficult after living soo long with it. I’m not at that point yet so I’ll continue to be rotting my brain with my 20,000 apps and wonder why I don’t have storage LOL. Good luck!!
This is so cool. I think it is important in today’s age to connect with the world around you rather than be glued to a device.
Interesting blog! Going analog sounds really hard to do, and I commend you for dedicating yourself to it. The internet is a terrible breeding ground for comparison. Although we can find uplifting things on the internet, we can also find the exact opposite, so It’s important to manage our intake and be careful. Anyways, you’ve made a really good decision, and I wish you luck on your journey.