"I don't like my relationship with my phone - and I want to change it": the thing I will do differently in 2023

The other night I was bathing my 15 month old son. He grabbed the shampoo bottles, the rubber ducky and a hairbrush, and plunged them into the bath water. He squealed, reveling in a private game. I turned away, picked up my phone, updated my email and checked Instagram. Then I paraded while my son played in the tub next to me, thinking he didn't want to be watched. When he noticed me on my phone, looking away from him, his smile disappeared. He moaned and cried. I immediately hung up the phone, cooing, “I'm sorry, baby. I'm sorry." But he cried mercilessly.

My wife, hearing the din, came into the bathroom, picked him up in a towel and washed him away. 'carried to his room. I followed behind, still apologizing. He scowled. 'He's upset because you weren't paying attention,' my wife said. 'I'm sorry, baby.'

Why can't I be there with my son What was I looking for on my phone?

I don't think I've clearly drawn the lines between me and my phone, or looked closely enough at the specific thoughtless ways the phone keeps me from communicating with the people who matter. My son relies on me to be there to him; he sees me as an appropriate role model and to be there for him.

Shaming yourself, or falling into negative self-talk, is not what what I want to do here: I want to recognize I don't like the relationship I have with my phone and I want it to change.

Yes, I know, me and everyone - but what am I actually doing about it and how much am I questioning my impulse? I know some incredibly smart people have invented technology and our addiction is an intended effect, but I don't want to be critical of the tech industry. I just want to convey the emotional impact scrolling had on me.

I started talking a lot more about my use of social media in therapy. My counselor wonders if I'm checking partly as a coping mechanism, because of the exhaustion of being deaf in the hearing world, striving to hear all day. I fall back on scrolling because it feels like a sedative and it relaxes me, while keeping me alert numb to the screen, where all the content I'm passively consuming is captioned. It seems like most of us go into a social media meltdown when we're tired and fainting.

It makes sense, but it can't be only part of the story. Yes, we are collectively glued to our phones, “dulling the most vivid parts of ourselves,” as Jenny Odell describes in her book How to Do Nothing: Resist the Attention Economy. But, now that I'm trying to unpack my social media relationship with a medical professional, I wonder what parts of myself I could discover or rediscover without social media getting in the way?

< p class="dcr-1b64dqh ">Tonight I bathed my son trying not to turn off and turn away impulsively - I try to remain available, to see him play quietly. I felt the urge to check my phone and felt that feeling and was glad I created a moment with him. He has nine teeth and light hazel hair. Her curls fall not far from her eyes, which are her mother's eyes.

I hope to cross the precipice of more of these feelings next year. I want to become more intentional with my attention, and I've already deactivated my Twitter account. Most people I've spoken to who are still there claim to be there to 'watch it burn' but in a week and my screen time has gone down I have more reading and keep the phone off of scope. the bathroom and the bedroom. It gives me a little private kick.

Nearly every conversation I have with people on social media seems generalized and clichéd, which they have been" doom scrolling" and "get dumber with every minute they spend on their phone".

I know this is an obvious observation but there are things that must be said over and over again, messages that deserve the ever-present prayers and songs of Stevie Wonder. The message is: "Are you paying attention?"

This way I'm not just thinking about what I'm modeling for my son, but what he's modeling for me, if I notice it, if I look closer, to see how sweetly it is present when it plays. I want to keep him safe in my gaze. I want to be aware of the part of me that refuses to be immersed and alive in an unplugged way, so I can create moments that deepen our breath and connect us more intimately than air.