Safe

I laid in bed, my eyes fixed on the small screen in my hand. My thumb swiped endlessly, bringing a barrage of colourful images that kept my attention for a brief moment, just long enough for my brain to register what I was consuming before scrolling to the next picture. 

It was after work, and this was my designated time to relax. I’m not entirely sure what about having the world at my fingertips, with videos screaming at me, I found relaxing, but it seemed to be a ritual that I did day in and day out. 

There was a large level of success with the simple flip phone I had bought. When I was away from the house, without data, it was freeing. Gone were the days of gazing at the smartphone in my hand while walking down the sidewalk, or pulling out Instagram the second I felt a twinge of boredom while standing in line. I was now fully present in the outside world.

A problem still existed in my inside world. 

At home, with my old smartphone that was now exclusively on wifi, I was still fully addicted. Instagram was the number one culprit, with my reasoning for having it being this very blog. Without it, I couldn’t reach people. With it, I scrolled for hours.

I tried minimalism apps. While designed with the best of intentions, they still provided the ability to override them, and my complete lack of willpower resulted in simply deactivating the social media restrictions I had placed. “Just a few minutes”, I would tell myself, before noticing the sun had set and it was now time for bed. Lately, if I feel particularly stressed, I find I can lock into scrolling for hours, as if I’m handing my consciousness off to someone else, as if it’s too heavy for the moment.

Last week, I looked at my screen time. On Sunday, a day I was supposed to be relaxing and preparing for the upcoming week, I logged over six hours on social media. Although I’ve seen numbers like this before, I gasped. My determined effort to reduce my screen time was clearly not a success when I was at home, and that’s what I needed to focus on now. 

I can’t remember if I saw an ad, or how I stumbled across it, but at some point this week I found myself looking at the Kitchen Safe. Unbeknownst to me, it’s been around for years, and consists of a clear, plastic box with a locking lid. It can be locked for anywhere from one minute to ten days, and the best part of all is there’s no override. Once you select the time and press the button, it gives you a short five seconds to change your mind. After that, the only way in is if you smash open the plastic container, something most people don’t want to do after they’ve shelled out the money for it in the first place.

So, it had come to this. My willpower clearly had reached new lows lately, and I thought the only solution was to physically bar myself from accessing the tiny computer that was monopolizing my time. With the same level of excitement I normally experience with online shopping, I quickly added it to my cart, noting the day it was predicted to arrive.

Lucky for me, it came one day early, on Sunday afternoon. This was a blessing, as I had thrown my back out the day before and found myself once again endlessly doomscrolling in bed. There were books to read, blogs to write, and even things I wanted to watch on Netflix, but none of those options stood up to the swamp of endless media that I was so fixated on. 

As soon as it arrived, I dove into the cardboard box. Reading the instructions, I noted that if the batteries died, the safe would stay locked, only resuming the countdown once new batteries were received. There was truly no going back once it was locked.

Placing the safe in front of me on the bed, I tested it with a one minute timer. Then, I threw my smartphone in it. It was four in the afternoon, and I decided a nice four hour break was a good place to start. I turned the dial, set the time, and pushed down. Five, four, three, two, one…

Lock.

I exhaled. 

Well, there it was. It didn’t matter how badly I wanted to look at Instagram, or e-mail, or message on WhatsApp. I had put my smartphone in prison, and there was no releasing it until it had done it’s time.

The funny thing is that once it was locked up, I felt a bit more free. As I’m typing this, it’s only been in the safe for a couple of hours. Normally I’d be picking up my phone between every few paragraphs, getting whatever little hit of dopamine I could, but this took that compulsive option away.

So, we’ll see how this goes. My goal is to have the smartphone in the safe for twenty-two hours of the day, and I suppose I’ll have to rely on willpower to make sure I follow through.

In the meantime, I’ll ask Brent to hide the hammer.