Get Rid of the Apps (And Social Media, And Your Phone)
The year is 2013. I was 13 years old and didn’t have a smartphone yet (had a PC but didn’t know how to operate). Instead of watching reels on Instagram, we used to play on the ground. Instead of watching Netflix on my laptop or smartphone, I used to watch Star One, Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, etc. Life was good.
After my 10th exams, college wasn’t near and need of a phone was apparent. I believe my brother, 6 years elder than me, was lucky when he went to college. Why? Because he used a Nokia phone which didn’t have an app store. Our generation is drowned in apps. There’s an app for everything. But we should ask ourselves: do we really need “everything”?
I know the topic sounds vague, but hear me out: with unlimited data in our hands, do we really need to have apps installed on your phone? We can just install them on-the-go with 5G on the rise. Heck, even my 4G enabled smartphone can install most apps within a minute.
According to data.ai’s latest “State of Mobile 2023” report, Indians spent 4.9 hours daily on smartphones in 2022. So, what exactly are we doing on our smartphones? We are using apps, a ton of apps, EVERY SINGLE DAY!
The problem with Android phones is that it has a ton of apps pre-installed. And there is no way we can just uninstall, we have to disable them. But, Android being, well, Android, the developers have built a neat little trick to uninstall system apps as well (Dear XDA, thank you)
I didn’t have my first phone until I started attending junior college. Till then, I was happy. Really happy. Playing games on PS2 and football after school was my life. Not having a phone didn’t bother me. And it was the time when my fellow gen-Zs were getting accustomed to a smartphone.
There was one thing quite unusual in junior college, though. My grades tanked. I used to think it wasn’t because of a phone that I carried along with me 24/7. Social media wasn’t there to blame, because I wasn’t on any.
Then came engineering. I started using instant messaging apps and social media because there was no other option. Nothing could be done without it. So I joined WhatsApp back during the first semester of engineering.
4 years of engineering went smoothly. My grades were above average, but my health, both physical and mental, kept deteriorating. Each year, I kept creating popular social media accounts: Snapchat, Instagram, LinkedIn. You name it. Nothing could go wrong, right? Well, pandemic said hi.
The first 6 months were the worst, and then I read Cal Newport’s Deep Work. But it didn’t hit me at the time I read the book. However, it made me think. I questioned my phone and social media use.
Here are a few questions that I asked myself and is something that you should do too:
- Am I a different person online?
- Do I really need an app for {a particular task}?
- Is my sleep schedule getting affected due to my smartphone use?
- Do I create my own opinions (and not get affected by online media?)
Imagine your phone as an actual person and let Kanye enlighten you.
