I am what they consider an “Elder Millenial”. I was born in 1984, I am fortunate to remember life before phones were glued to our hands, and scrolling social media could easily eat away all of the hours.
However, this also means that as technology has grown and social media has become the lens through which we view the world and each other, I have grown accustomed to these things and grown with them in a sense. It has always been a running joke in our house that I am attached to my phone. If I do not post on Facebook for longer than a day or two my own parents will call me text me to make sure everything is ok.
I have never had a problem with the amount of time I am on my phone or engaging on social media. My husband works shift work; many times when he is working nights after the kids go to bed scrolling social media is how I entertain myself. It is what I did to fill the time. I’ve never felt convicted or ashamed of my screen time.
Recently with the addition of TikTok to my social media pages, I started to feel overwhelmed.
Overwhelmed with the information, the division, the ugliness, the dark, the light. Overwhelmed with it all, yet I couldn’t stop scrolling. It was my routine, it was what I was used to. I know so many that put phones away or just ignore their phones after a certain time in the day. But honestly, even if I try to do that for myself if I get notifications and it all goes out of the window. It bothers me to know I have things piling up or waiting or just that little pesky red number.
I knew something needed to change. I was sleeping terribly. Constantly irritable and in need of a break, without the self-control to give myself electronic boundaries. Finally a little over a week ago after receiving my weekly screen time report I decided to look into the screen time options my iPhone offered. I was happy to find that I had the option to set screen time limits for myself!
I chose to turn all of my apps off except my phone/texts from 9 pm until 7 am.
Once 9 pm comes I no longer get notifications from ANY social media or app. It has been gloriously freeing to set my phone on the charger at 9 pm and have no need to look at it again unless my husband is working and we are texting in the evenings.
I am happy to report that I am sleeping better, I feel more relaxed and less overwhelmed.
The reason I wanted to share my decision and the results were because we do talk so often about screen limits for our kids, all the while, phones are almost permanently glued to (most of) our hands. We talk about overstimulation for our kids and how that can affect their moods and sleep, but we forget that we can become overstimulated as well. And our sleep (which is already interrupted by kids) will suffer. And our moods (already hanging on by a thread) will suffer.
It is important for us (especially those of us with an electronic problem like myself) to set limits and boundaries for ourselves. This screen time limitation on my phone is perfect for me! And I hope that it encourages anyone else who also feels like they are struggling to not feel like they are alone or that they are “bad” for it. My hope is that it empowers you to feel ok to give yourself boundaries and limits.
If you want to implement this for yourself on the iPhone you will need to go to your settings, select “screen time” and then select “Downtime.” This will allow you to set the times that your phone will limit the apps you have selected.
Sometimes even Mom needs to limit her screen time! Tell me do you set your phone down in the evenings, or do you struggle with mindless scrolling like me?
