The notion of wasting time is arguably not one we wish to affiliate ourselves with. Wasting time equates to minimal productivity, and social constructs have influenced us to be anything but. However, in this day and age, I would argue most of us inevitably waste time on a daily basis thanks to one major culprit, said culprit posting as our smartphones.
I don’t think there has ever been a device in existence that possesses the ability to steal our attention like smartphones do. Yes, smartphones and the technology they’re created with enable us to do more things from our fingertips than ever before, but this also leads to an unhealthy and borderline obsessive attachment to them. In the instance we have misplaced or temporarily lost our phone, we instantly begin to panic, feeling as though we are missing an essential limb; it’s gotten to the point that rather than co-existing with our phones, we can’t live in their absence.
I will personally admit that I waste the most time engaging with social media apps, and I imagine most people would say the same. It’s wild how much time can pass when you’re deeply immersed in Instagram Reels or TikTok’s; it is for this exact reason I refuse to have TikTok on my phone because I know it will pose as yet another means to dwindle time away that I could be using to accomplish far more important things than doom scrolling.
One of the most effective ways to abstain from wasting time on our phones is simply not to use them as much. Trying to get out of the habit of bringing our phones everywhere and having them on us at all times is the first step in breaking the smartphone addiction cycle, and while it may seem challenging in the beginning, the more you do it, the easier it will become.
Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash
ontheedgeofeverything 