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Limiting distraction on my phone

Posted on 2022-09-16

For the past year, I've been slowly but surely "decluttering" my phone by removing many applications as well as changing the way I'm using it/them. I consider myself lucky not to have fallen into the social media trap too much, as I'm limiting social media to only the fediverse[1], where I barely post and interact sporadically. The other social media I'm on are services that includes social media capabilities that I don't use, mainly Github and Youtube (yes, they are partly social media) and linkedin that I don't really use… but I do receive interesting offer from time to time, so I'm keeping it open.

Not using "traditional" social media (instagram, twitter, …) was helpful during this journey! There are many reasons I've been going through it, here are a few in no particular order:

Data Privacy: I think it speaks for itself. Removing as many app as possible means you send data to less company, always a win.
"Addiction": I'm saying "addiction" between quote here because I've never been myself what I consider addicted to my phone, at least I haven't been for a very long time. But this is a real problem and I see more and more people lost when their phone battery is dead or are out of cell reception (usually you see them begging for wifi code or someone to share its connection if any). I may write a dedicated post on this, but this is a serious thing to have in mind!
FOMO: I don't suffer too much of FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out [2]), and I have based my "nerd news" mainly from RSS feeds and a few pinned tags on mastodon. But for me RSS is the most important way of following content. Having said that, it means the feeds I'm subscribed to will always be there in my RSS reader (freshrss[3]). Also, I've learned not to care to much about missing any type of news… If I need it, I'll find it again at some point, so I'm not concern about this. I can go some time without reading "anything" and not feel bad at all about it, I don't care too much. It is more for me to find cool things/readings than to hear about "everything" about some topics (which isn't realistic with the speed of the web anyway).
Better battery life: Obvious one as well, but with less app running, my phone battery last longer. And let's face it, spending less time on it is also helping a lot on that front :).

Some rules I try to follow for what I install on my phone:

Remove any app that consumes time for no gain (eg: games or social media)
Focus on open source applications, try to leave without if none available
Stay "realistic" with my own needs but also what society mandates (sic)
Limit notifications to their minimum

Ok, so what's left?

Application with notification:

Phone: well… I still want it to be a phone right? :).
Signal: for both sms and signal messages.
Telegram client: I only use it for my domotic communication system and not chatting with anyone or groups. So any notifications on telegram means something is happening or maybe a reminder or the morning/night routine starting! So important and yet not too distractful (usually ±3 messages a day).
Matrix client: where only 2 rooms I'm on have notification (and I'm not in may rooms anyway), and each of these 2 rooms only have 1 other participant in each, so notifications are very limited too. I also want to move domotic notifications to matrix at some point and remove telegram.

And that's it! All the other apps have their notification muted. So which are they?

Wallabag: my most important non communication app. This is what I use the most when I can't do anything but be on my phone (eg: waiting for a meeting, without a book or anything…). It allows me read all the saved articles from both the web or gemini[4].
Email: personal (k9) and pro (gmail T_T). In both cases I have to manually open the application and refresh emails, which isn't often! I check my work email on my phone almost… never (but might be "urgency" so it's better to have it), and my personal email usually 4/5 times a day.
Banking apps… Because now I can't pay online without their stupid app… I hate this but don't have much choice. "Well played"" banks I guess… (puke).
GPS/maps: Because that is one of the most useful thing we added to "smart" phones :). I always try to look at directions and don't look at my phone, but when I'm lost or going in a remote (aka lost) place somewhere, this is very useful compared to a paper map :P (young people probably never had to unfold giant paper map to find their way :D).
Firefox: Mandatory for all the wikipedia reading or other searches.
Lagrange: To browse the smoll/slow web.
TFA app because it is better for security.
Podcast app to listen to the 3/4 podcasts I have subscribed to, mostly on the move or while doing house chores^^.
A calculator: While I love to do mental arithmetic in my head, sometimes you need to double check :).
Music app, because it is a must for me while traveling (either bus, train, subway or whatever, I love music :)).
Gadget Bridge (banglejs version): Because I do have a bangleJS 2 smartwatch[5] (even though a limited usage of it,, but I'll write later about it :).

And that's it! While I agree I still have too many apps installed, the good thing is that my usage of them are limited! Even Firefox/Lagrange are not used just to browse and lose time but mainly for searching specific info or to read a specific article and then stop (even though sometimes while reading wikipedia it can be hard to stop). Others are apps I use only when needed, like the GPS, banking or TFA apps. Emails are important in case I need to check if a confirmation in real time or anything, but having them in "silent" helps a lot not being distracted. Weirdly, I don't open these apps often as I don't really care about "real time emails". I'll read/answer when I want :).

Looking at usage, I can see 57min today (Thursday) and yesterday (Wednesday), 42 min for Tuesday, 1h18min for Monday. Too bad the built-in app where I can see these data doesn't display averages per months or weeks… Looking at the date manually, I can see than 42 is on the lowest end and the average seems to be around 1h10/15. Biggest spike are reaching 2+h, mostly during week-ends when I use less my laptop and use my phone to read news… I don't know if it's still too much or not, but looking at the app usage, wallabag is n°1, which I'm very happy about as it is aligned with what I'm "allowing" myself to do on my phone :). At least I don't have a constant need to look at my phone.

Also, my phone is always in vibrate mode and, outside of working hours, is not always in the same room as me. I have a smartwatch as explain above, but it is never connected to my phone when I'm home (bluetooth off on both device) and I only enable the connection when on the move and know I won't feel my phone vibrate. Notifications on the watch are even more limited as only the phone and signal applications are allowed are pushed to the watch.

Not sure what the goal of this post is though… Except I'm very sensitive to the addiction phones can create to anyone at any age! Making my phone less smart in the era of smartphone might sound silly, but I'm 100% sure my mental health is thanking me!

Take care!

Footnotes

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[1] My Fediverse profile:

My fediverse profile (HTTPS)

[2] FOMO on Wikipedia:

FOMO on Wikipedia (HTTPS)

[3] Freshrss:

Freshrss (HTTPS)

[4] Saving gemini articles in wallabag:

Saving gemini articles in wallabag (Gemini)

[5] BangleJS website:

BangleJS website (HTTPS)

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