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Dear Dáithí: I feel so embarrassed — I'm a mum of two and addicted to my phone

Dear Dáithí: I feel so embarrassed — I’m a mum of two and addicted to my phone


I’m very embarrassed to be even writing this, but it is really affecting my life at the moment. I think I am addicted to my phone. I’m mortified to say it, but I feel like it is out of my control. 

I am happily married with two children, one of whom has extra needs. I find my days are getting eaten up by sitting on the couch scrolling through my apps. 

It was only when a friend told me about checking my screen time usage, I got a big fright. My average last week was eight hours and 40 minutes a day! I play crosswords and sudoku, which I tell myself is good for my brain.

I watch my Netflix on it. I am on WhatsApp A LOT with my kids’ school and sports groups. I do all my banking online and I watch a lot of reels and videos on parenting and cooking on Facebook and Instagram. 

But the thing is, I don’t have time to make any of the lovely recipes I see these influencers making because I can’t seem to get off the phone to give myself time to prepare dinners, like I used to. 

I feel it’s taking over my life, I’ve tried to cut back, but I am in a cycle of constantly looking at my phone, I don’t even realise I’m doing it sometimes. 

I used to love reading in bed, now I’m on my phone at night until I get a headache from the screen and the tiredness. My husband has noticed, but he is very kind and gentle man and hasn’t said anything about it.

I just feel like I can’t break free, I’m a grown woman, it’s ridiculous!

I think we have to start off being very honest here, you spend way too much time on your phone, and it does sound like you are addicted to it. 

This is no big surprise to you as you know this already. Now the reason why I’m saying it out loud, is that sometimes we need to hear it like that, or to see it in writing — it can have a very sobering effect. 

You spend over 8 hours a day on your phone, that’s over 1/3 of a day, everyday, and this along with being a very busy mom. For me, one of the big problems here is that your mind must be going 90, all of the time. 

When do you switch off, or do you ever? It’s no wonder that you feel like you can’t break free. You are in a cycle, and we need to break that cycle, so you get control of your life again.

Now we all spend too much time on our phones, I can’t sit here and say I don’t. I did check my own usage before sitting down for this, and I’ve two and half hours a day and I think about that a lot, but I do spend a lot of time in a car and studio. 

I do get from your letter that it’s the mindless scrolling that is upsetting you and that can be a very easy trap to fall into. 

We’ve all been on TikTok and all of a sudden, a few hours have passed. I think where we need to work on, is that type of screen time.

We all need our phones for paying bills and all the rest, so I think you should prioritize what you do with it. You need to ask yourself how much of that scrolling do you really enjoy. 

For example, you might enjoy shows on Netflix, so by all means watch them. 

But you need to be honest when looking at other things, and ask yourself, ‘am I really even looking at this content or just scrolling for the sake of scrolling?’, and if that’s the case, put the phone away.

I would even set a time limit for when you can use the phone, outside of calls and if you keep looking at your phone, turn it upside down and turn off all the notifications except the incoming calls, so the phone isn’t hopping all the time. 

I haven’t had my ringer on for ten years and I love it. It was hard at first, but I got used of it, and you’ll have to do the same. It will feel weird at first, but you will forget that it’s even there. 

Another thing I did a long time ago and that was to keep my phone charging down in the kitchen and out of the bedroom. 

This is probably the biggest one you’ll have to face, so when you go to bed, you’ll have to leave the phone downstairs.

What do you need it for, really? Whatever happens during the night will still be there in the morning. You have to also work on FOMO, fear of missing out. 

What we are doing here is breaking this cycle you are currently in, and as I write this, I’m beginning to realise that this is not easy especially when you’re on over eight hours a day. 

This will not sort itself out and you need to make a plan, whether that’s to cut it down bit by bit, or down to 4 hours a day for the first week.

All I know is that you need to act now, and you need to be tough on yourself. You need to rip that band aid off. 

Your husband sounds like a lovely guy, but he needs to play his part too. I’m sure he would like to have the real you back and not some one who is only half present and that goes for your children too. 

Children pick up all the habits of their parents so I’m sure that they are looking at you and saying, ‘well that’s what the adults do’ and they might start doing the same thing, so now is the perfect time to do something about this.

You said you used to read before bed, I think you should go back to it. What a nice thing to do, and believe me you will sleep a lot better after that than scrolling mindlessly. It’s time you retook ownership of your life, and putting the phone away is a great way to start.

Time to stop scrolling, and start dreaming again, and dreaming beyond the ordinary. 

Do what you want to do, and not what some influencer told you was cool. 

Grab life by the horns, because it is time to get back on track.

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