The impact of having ‘downtime’ on a phone
Never before has the human mind had to absorb so much information each day. Actually, it’s more like each minute. We sit on our phones in our ‘downtime’ and fill almost every spare minute overwhelming our minds with content: news feeds, social streams, messaging, googling. Even on the toilet. Our poor bodies don’t even get a break to take a crap.
We can see the latest haircut, floor rug, coffee cup, fridge, travel destination, jewelry, superfood or educational development toy…All. The. Time. While the constant stream of information itself is unhealthy, what it’s actually making our minds do is continually compare what we have with what others have. Not just when we choose to leave our house and venture into the big wide world, but from our very toilet seat. We can go into the bathroom feeling content, yet come out feeling like we either don’t have enough, or that we’re not enough. Both are bad places to be.
The infiltration of the outside world, via technology, into the once sacred space of our homes and minds, is so damaging.
I know for me personally that when I’m faced with extra stress, I turn to my phone more often in an attempt to numb what I’m feeling or ‘get a break’. I truly think that ‘having downtime on a phone’ is one of the biggest oxymorons of our lifetime. Numbing painful and difficult feelings, while in the short term is sometimes helpful in getting us through life’s worst moments, is damaging to our mental wellbeing.
In the past 8 years, I’ve had many challenging years with family members’ physical and mental health, as well as my own. I’ve spent many, many years distracting myself with the noise of my phone. The more stress I’ve faced, over a prolonged period of time, the more I’ve turned to my phone to keep my mind busy, and the more I’ve become aware of anxiety impacting my life. The link between health challenges > phone distraction > increased anxiety are clear to me. They become part of a vicious cycle - each one fueling the next.
In this era of COVID, so many of you are facing prolonged health stress for the first time in your lives. It truly sucks. While a different scenario, those of us who have lived or cared for those with critical and chronic health issues know what long-term, health-related uncertainty is like. The reluctance to make plans for the future, fear of disappointment if we need to cancel another holiday, avoiding being close to others with cold or flu symptoms, the mental wrestle of not having a cure, and accepting that we can’t get a long-term prognosis. These are BIG things to deal with. In an ideal world, we wouldn’t face any of them. But the reality is we do.
Anecdotally, phone use is going up. These past years have been relentless, and people are turning to their phones as a way to escape. But as someone who has lived with health-related uncertainty for 8 years now, and at the risk of preaching to the choir, I beg you not to let the phone distraction > increased anxiety cycle happen to you. In a rare moment, if we’re following the right people/pages, we may feel slightly brighter after scrolling. But for the vast majority of the time, I’m convinced we don’t come off our phones and re-enter the real world in front of us as in a better headspace.
Imagine going into the bathroom without your phone feeling content, and then coming out feeling exactly the same. You don’t even have to feel better; but you should want to not feel worse. Our minds need extra care during seasons of health anxiety - let’s not let our phones suck away the feeling of having enough, or being enough.
