I often ask myself Is my attention being hijacked by seemingly harmless thumb scrolling on my phone? With an average of 3.50 hours per day in the last 7 days (26h and 56mins) the answer was a solid yes! Even if i did subtract the 5h and 41 mins of productivity usage that’s still way too much time on social networking and entertainment.
I can’t pinpoint why exactly I became so hooked so I decided to run a little experiment to better understand my predicament!
Start with Why!
Why is this so relevant now!
Well even as I write this blog my 4 year old is sitting in front of the telly watching endless You Tube Videos and although I know better then to leave him to it , I just needed him to be distracted long enough for me to be productive. Being a parent is certainly a huge juggle and to get through the daily chores and keep the kids entertained is no easy feat. Im certainly not a screen nazi and as a parent there are times where screens are a great choice when used wisely.
But this is not a blog about the kids, this is about me, although Ive always been really good with not using devices when the kids are around, the moment they aren’t it’s basically back to the phone to catchup on where I left off! Generally speaking I spend most of my time on You Tube watching videos on Gardening, History and Jiu Jitsu, which can on occasion have me completely engaged late into the night!
This means my meditation time gets pushed out, I stay up too late, and its way more difficult to meditate cos im amped up about random stuff! I also feel guilty because I’ve stopped reading, and would like to get back on the reading bandwagon to really improve my mind and wellbeing
The Pursuit of Less
I began to notice these patterns a few months back, and started to slowly back off on a few screen’s. Firstly we cut off Netflix which was the first level of entertainment we reduced. We reduced tablet time for the kids to the weekends only. We then transitioned the kids to using the TV rather than their tablets so they had to learn to share and in turn engage with each other rather then disappear into there rooms.
I became stricter on my personal use and by default wasn’t scrolling through netflix through the night trying to find something to distract me to sleep.
The Pursuit of more
With an overall reduction of screen-time within the family unit as parents we are now in a position to work on how we engage with the kids. During the months of November we have committed to switching off the Home Internet and relying entirely on our phones as WI-FI hotspots, yes this is a bit extreme but its just an experiment to re-adjust our default behaviours and learn how we can make better use of our time as a family …
Our hope is that we can fill our time with more
- Family Adventures
- Reading
- Physical Activity
- Quality family time
- Creativity play
- Imagination play
- Science experiments
- Gardening projects
Its early days and I don’t know if this whole experiment will crash and burn after the first weekend but we are willing to give it a try to see what happens..
Stay tuned as I keep you updated on our progress if any at all hahahaha
Coach Richie