Yay for the young. They may be lighting the way to our freedom.
According to , smartphone use has declined among 18 to 24 year olds for the first time since data has been recorded, down from 3.9 to 3.8 hours a day in the last year.
Okay, a six-minute daily drop-off in usage might not be what you’d call a nosedive, not much of a plummet, but at least it’s a baby-step in the right direction.
Research group Kantar TNS speculate that we may have reached I’m not sure about that, but take inspiration from the fact that 34 per cent of that same age bracket around the world feel that they use their phones too much, and are evidently doing something about it.
I’ll take what sliver of hope I can find, screenslave that I am. If they can do it, why can’t I? And why can’t the droves of us out there?
Research group Kantar TNS speculate that we may have reached “peak phone”.
Cards on the table, I’ve got it bad.
I’ve always been fond of a newsfeed, but this past 18 months the cycle’s been a relentless focus-suction. And living on this side of the world, where the most jaw-dropping events of global calamity, certainly the latest Trump twitter-spew, tend to occur while we’re in bed, means that the very first thing I do, having stumbled through the house and switched the kettle on in the morning, is reach for my phone, braced for the headlines.
Pretty much the rest of the day, I’ve got one eye on the thing. It’s always got something new to tell me.
What I’m doing next Friday, a work anniversary I should congratulate someone on, a politician just told a lie, that someone liked something I just posted, but someone else thinks I’m a terrible parent, a family member far away (who I miss dearly) is having a shitty time, my eight year-old child has just put some work up on the class app, perhaps I’d like to comment on that, and my destination should be coming up on my left.
Yesterday a wake-up call came, loud and clear. I was out for a walk in my local suburban high street, a pleasant thoroughfare nestled in the foothills of the Dandenong Ranges. I’d had my coffee, done my shopping and was heading back towards home, ear-plugs in and nose deep in a mildly amusing video on “prancerising” someone had just shared on social media.
Pretty much the rest of the day, I’ve got one eye on the thing. It’s always got something new to tell me.
Stepping blithely out onto a scarcely used hillside road, I felt shade drop across my face and looked up to see a CFA fire-truck turning in. I froze, then jumped back, appalled by my own idiocy.
I spent the next 10 seconds remonstrating with my phone by the side of the road. Shades of John Cleese thrashing his Mini in Fawlty Towers. What a tosser I must have appeared to those firefighters. It didn’t help that I was wearing a hat I have reason to suspect may be silly, that gives me the look of a middle-aged dad with delusions of hipsterhood.
My battle with phone-bondage is nothing new.
I tried to limit my news and social media-checking a couple of years back, ration the time I spent looking at the screen.
This may sound deranged, but I’d swear my phone launched a counter-campaign in protest. Started pocket-dialling like crazy. One woman I’d worked indirectly with on a project a few months earlier I inadvertently Face-Timed three times in as many weeks, once on Christmas morning. Had to delete her from my contacts before the poor woman blocked me or took out an injunction.
Despite my best intentions, the phone always managed to wheedle its way back into my attention. Then the international news cycle went into overdrive and it’s been hard to tear my eyes off ever since.
This may sound deranged, but I’d swear my phone launched a counter-campaign in protest.
Right now, this second, we’ve got Trump feeling the heat on Russia, Spain in constitutional crisis, Theresa May on borrowed time, not to mention our own parliamentary blunderfest and the expanding ripples of the #MeToo phenomenon (today’s guests Kevin Spacey and a British MP). How am I meant to keep up with all this if I’m on some phone-fast?
The data from this recent Kantar TNS survey reminds me I don’t have to. Cutting out six minutes a day like those youthful role-models would be a good start. And I think I’d lose more than that if I restricted my news-binges to a couple of times a day, instead of whenever I get the chance for one.
As for social media, I could lay off that a little, too. If anything as good as that Irish family with the bat comes up, it’ll reach me, maybe through friends IRL, there’s really no need for trawling.
Life’s too short to spend half of it squinting into a screen. And it could get shorter if I keep crossing the road while at it.
Spring’s a poppin’. Time to smell the roses.
And not check the species on an app.
