Why Limiting Your Screen Time is the Best Thing You Can Do Right Now!
Have you ever limited your screen time on your phone? When I say limit, I mean not like personally keep aware of your time and just be cautious of it but actually let your phone shut down your applications when you reach a certain amount of time?
Over this past month, that’s exactly what I did, I turned on the screen time setting in my phone to limit my apps and how long they can run. (I put at the bottom of the blog just how to do that.) What I personally decided was that I would give myself two hours in total for, Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok, and Snapchat. Now two hours may seem like a long time but when you’re splitting it for a couple of apps and you’re also having to work on social media throughout the day I can go by pretty quickly. I want to share with you what I’ve learned over the past month of not being in grossed in my social media.
Some of you know my word for this year is intentionality and if you haven’t read my blog post about that yet you should go check it out, it’s called “2019 to 2020, It’s More than a Goal “. A brief synopsis I talked about how I just want to be more intentional with my time and how I use it! I thought that during this quarantine I have a little bit more time in my schedule then I would normally have with not having to go back-and-forth to work and just not going to the gym. I knew that I needed to be the best steward of my time and be effective with what I’m doing during the day.
At the very beginning of this quarantine, I found myself immersed in social media to keep myself busy and entertain and just kind of catch up on what everyone had been up to. I have friends and family that are all over the country. Social media was my way of keeping up with them. But what I found is that I wasn’t having quality conversations with those people and after I had checked in on them, I was getting lost in video after video. I soon realized that it was just eating up my time.
I was using social media as a mind-numbing tool where I could turn off my mind and be stuck in a different world. But honestly, after this last month of regulating my time on my social platforms, I have noticed that I am not missing as much as I thought I was. I am using my time more wisely on getting work done or watching a video that I would really enjoy rather than just getting lost.
In addition, I’ve learned over the course of this month is that social media is very draining. Trying to keep up with so many different people or trying to have constant conversations or even trying to interact constantly is so draining to anyone even an extrovert, like me. I was finding that after a day of work with constant conversation with coworkers, and then going on social media to have more constant conversation that I wasn’t really able to have a great conversation with my husband. I did not want to talk to anyone because I was constantly answering them on different social media platforms and not having an in-depth conversation instead.
Finally, what I’ve learned about limiting my social media is that I get more meaningful time to invest in myself. I can use that time to better myself, or take myself on an adventure, or educate myself in something that I may never have touched or thought of.
- Part of my time in quarantine has spent reading. Which in-return has been amazing in continuing to open my vocabulary, see different perspectives that others may have on the world, and help work through my dyslexia. (I plan on post at the end of the year the 20 books I read in 2020, so look for that! )
- Part of my time that I would’ve been used on social media has been spent with my husband and just are developing relationship. We are trying to spend more quality time on a walk with each other, or just time in the evening talking about what’s happening in the world all while learning about each other.
- I have also made it my mission, one that I plan to continue even after quarantine, to reach out to my family more and have a conversation. An in-depth conversation rather than just catching up on a silly picture that they. I want to talk about life with them and learn more about them.
Now don’t get me wrong I think social media can be a great tool and a great opportunity to reach others and kind of put your opinions out there. I think if it is used correctly and properly, monitored on your basis it can be more effective than it could be draining. However, you need to know what your limitations are and how you would like to make sure that your time is spent on social media. Start with asking yourself; “Why am I even here? What am I looking for? “
I challenge you to explore maybe what your limit would be and then challenge yourself with the task this week to limit your time. Start there and see what happens!
Here is how you turn on screen time through an Apple phone,
- Go into your settings.
- Look for the button that says Screen Time (mine was purple) you can hit that.
- Then go App limits (this was a yellow/orange on mine).
- Turn on by sliding the green bar.
- If you want to custom what apps to limit. Hit add limit
- Just pick your app and time limit and you are good to go.
Here are two reasons why I love this!
First, when I reach five minutes before the app shuts down it notifies me so I can either finish what I’m doing or choose to jump to a different app.
Second, when you reach your time limit, a screen comes up that says time limit has been reached. You can either hit OK or choose to ignore the limit. When you ignore the limit, it will ask you if you ignore the limit for 1 minute, 15 minutes, or for the rest of the evening.
If you choose one of those it will allow you to use the app for the allotted time and then pop up a time limit the screen again. Honestly, the best part is when you choose to have your screen time done for the day your apps turned gray. When if you try to open the app it will tell you that you’ve reached your time limit for the day. But it still gives you’re the option to choose, use the app for 1 minute, 15 minutes, or the rest of the day. This feature helps me not open my apps after I’ve already reached my initial time limit and by manually allowing my phone to do this, I’m not tempted to just set an arbitrary time to get off my phone because let’s be honest I never did. Letting the phone physically shut me out is what I personally needed for my discipline.
