Hi, my name is Ashley, and I’m addicted to my phone…

I used to be good with my phone and only use it when needing to communicate with others. However, during Covid-19, I developed a horrible addiction to using technology. I’ve lived two extremes of phone use in a matter of 10 years. When I travelled to Papua New Guinea, I had little to no access to technology for six whole weeks. I only used my phone to take pictures as there was NO wifi in the jungle. Fast forward 10 years, and I use my phone and computer ALL. THE. TIME. I’ll admit, there have been times when I’ve spent 12 hours on my phone.  

I use technology constantly throughout my day for personal, work and school activities. I fell victim to downloading TikTok during the pandemic, and now I visit the app every day. I spend the most time on this app as it numbs my brain after a long day. The first thing I do in the morning is spend some time on my phone as I wake up. This usually involves social media like Facebook and Instagram. During the day, as I am at work or doing school work, I use things like URcourses, Google Drive and Docs, Safari, Notes and Outlook for my emails. I use Apple Music and YouTube most days for music. Music helps me stay focused while doing schoolwork, and I enjoy listening while driving. I finish the day by endlessly scrolling through TikTok until I fall asleep. 

I think there is a time and place for technology as long as it doesn’t take over and you use it to benefit your life. One goal I’ve had for the last couple of years is to take more photos and videos to capture memories. I found an app called 1 Second Everyday (1SE) that, as the name suggests, captures a 1-second video for each day. I’m looking forward to the end of the year to watching the 365 (well, I guess it’s 366…yay, leap year!) second snapshot of my year.  

I have a lot going on in my life, so it is crucial for me to stay organized. While I do use the Notes app on my phone constantly, I am still a firm believer in a paper-and-pen day planner and sticky notes. The Notes app is a place where I brain dump. I create many lists including what I need to do for the week, a running lists of tasks I want to finish in the near future, grocery lists, ideas for Christmas gifts, goals I create for myself and I use it to scan and save documents cause who has a printer anymore!

I find it easy to get distracted by my phone and need to come up with ways to stay focused. Lately, when I need to focus on schoolwork, I have to put my phone in another room. One thing that does work for me, and it might work for others, is to listen to classical instrumental music while doing homework.  If anyone has any tips or tricks to limit distractions from phones, I will gladly take it.

Guess it’s time to see what I missed on social media, while I’ve been writing this post. 

Until next time,

Ashley