The title was supposed to be “Moments of Thought Distraction” but I can’t do strikethrough in the title I guess.

Lately, I’ve been noticing myself falling into two bad habits with my phone.

The first is pulling out my phone when I have just a sliver of time. Taking a piss? Let’s watch a reel. Walking from the car to the grocery store? What’s the latest on Chess Reddit. Leaving work? Let’s check X and forget to turn the light in my office off because I’m scrolling.

This makes me feel like a piece of shit. It’s no mystery as to why it happens; the dopamine hit and the habit I develop through repeated use is clearly the reason I do this. I don’t even think about it. It’s like before I even unzipper my fly, my first move is to instinctually grab for my phone.

Two podcasts I listen to referenced this separately. Both basically harped on the idea of allowing your mind to be ‘bored’. When you’re standing in the checkout line, just stand and think. Don’t pull out your phone. Just have a moment of thought. I’m embarrassed at how little boredom I allow for myself.

The second is checking my phone before bed. I’ve recently started reading Stephen King’s 11/22/63 (which is over 800 pages!) and I like to read before bed. Say I get into bed at 10:00 PM, I’ll think to myself that I have a solid 30 minutes of reading before I turn off for sleep. But first, let’s just do a quick recap of all the shit on my phone. Before I know it, it’s 10:20 PM, and reading for just a few minutes seem silly, so I just go to bed and don’t read at all.

It’s like there’s this checklist of pointless phone stuff that I look at. Reddit, X, ESPN, Instagram. It’s all completely fucking useless. But in my mind, I feel like I should be caught up on the usual things I look at, and it’s nonsense. It’s total nonsense and again, I’m embarrassed by it. I will never finish this book at the rate I’m going.

So I’m acknowledging what a billion people already know. Smartphones clearly have a place in this world, but right now it’s getting the best of me. Some of you read this and think “that’s exactly what I do too” and some say “wow you’re one of those people“. But either way, this is my personal call to BREAK THE HABIT.