Kids use their phones way too much, and me too

Here I am writing like an old man bothered by how the youth is lost in endless scrolling and algorithms, only to proceed to do practically the same

Last week my family was invited to dinner with some friends, and some brought their younger kids.

I am something of a big cousin to them, and noticed they were pretty glued to their phones. This is something I see more and more often, and I’m not the only one. Out of nowhere, I decided to ask them how much they used their phone per day.

So, we go to the Digital Wellbeing section in the settings, and, yeah…

Some of them had above three hours of Instagram, at least. None of them are even 15 yet! When I think about the time they spend at school or sleeping, three hours is a lot of their remaining free time, going to waste. And that’s just Instagram, some have TikTok too. Wattpad also showed up, but I guess that at least requires reading comprehension, so I wasn’t too worried about it.

I admit, I did a bit of a scene about it, and recommended them to at least set up time limits, for their own good. But what else can I do? The problems lie beyond all of that. I just feel like an old man yelling at clouds, and no arguments actually settle in their minds, at least not yet.

At least during the talking and dinner, we all stayed away from touching our phones, so that’s pretty alright, compared to some cases I’ve read about in blogposts from teachers and other people who work with kids.

And of course, I have my own set of problems, y’all can see my phone usage every month. Here’s a sneak peek of some apps I used last week:

• Mastodon for 11 hours
• Fennec Browser for 6 hours
• Tubular (YT) for 6 hours
• Discord for 3 hours

Obviously, it’s not all a waste, it’s not just mindless scrolling, Tubular in particular is mostly background noise when doing other things. But, I am still seeking something! It may not be big social media, it may not be quick domapine hits and algorithmic feeds. But it’s definitely a bit of a problem.

I mentioned trying SmallWebJuly on my weeknotes, and this was definitely of a wake up call to actually commit to this even more. I do follow a lot of the Small Web, just not on my phone. Most of my RSS feed reading is done on my computer, or at my work computer, since I like to read some blog posts during dead times.

Regardless, I have disabled all notifications on Tusky (my Mastodon client) now, and I will only open the app when I feel like it. Same goes for Discord. I should dedicate that time to reading on my Kobo as well! Since I can keep track of that!

I started writing this yesterday, and as of today, I’ve definitely felt the urge to check my phone again multiple times, and sometimes I did. At least it’s not because of notifications though, so I’ll call that a win.

Well, enough rambling for today I guess. How are you guys doing when it comes to phone usage?

In other news, I’ve somehow managed to write 99 blogposts already, and tomorrow I might be done with #100DaysToOffload for the fourth time. Kind of great!

https://fosstodon.org/@joel/114866746035268589