Digital detox.

I've decided to set myself a challenge for the month of August and since I've been using my phone far too much in the past few weeks (though I had good reasons for it), so this seems like a good place to start. I want to do a little detox to focus on things that are actually important and enriching.

I don't think I have a massive problem with excessive use of technology, especially that most of the time I'm simply to busy to spend hours on social media, but summer holidays are tricky, especially that I'm not going away anywhere this year. I know very well that looking down at my phone for prolonged periods of time causes back pain and eye strain, not to mention the impact on emotional wellbeing. So I'm keen to make some changes to improve my life.

Here are the rules:

Laptop is a little tricky, because I need to actually use it to finish off my Master's assignment, but I will watch out for those moments of scrolling down Facebook Marketplace in search for furniture (joy of moving into an empty flat). For my laptop, I will set specific times for "mindless" browsing and looking for things. Skyping my family is another thing I'm going to use my laptop for. And working on the assignment. That' it. Well, I suppose blogging will be another exception, but I'm pretty efficient in writing these pieces once I get an idea what I want to write about.

As for the phone, I'll only use it for making calls and receiving calls and for my cycle tracker and spending tracker. That's it. I actually have an actual alarm clock, so I don't even need to use my phone for that. I'm going to put my phone in my bag so that I don't feel tempted to pick it up. I think it will be a challenge, because I often pick my phone up just out of habit rather than out of genuine need. I already changed the screen to greyscale, that actually helped a lot because grey screen is not as attractive as a screen with lovely bright colours. I'm also deleting the apps that I don't need, especially Facebook. The more inconvenient it is to access something (in this case, turn on my laptop, type in the web address and log into the website), the less likely I am to use it.

Starting tomorrow, 1st August, I'll use technology responsibly. No scrolling through pages and pages of posts which are not enriching my life in any way.

It will be a long month...