I know my phone is The Anxiety Machine. What can I do about it? Prompted by this podcast: an interview with Casey Johnston, who wrote this great article about “The DIY Dumbphone” (in which you do a factory reset on your phone, and get more intentional about installing apps).

Yes, I’ve deleted the main offenders: “X”, Facebook and Instagram. But my phone is still absolutely full of apps. A lot of them are actually useful and fun: Gemini and Gopher readers, guitar tuner, maps, notes, RSS reader, and radio apps among them. How do I know where to draw the line?

I’ve kept Mastodon apps on my phone, but even on The Fediverse we’ve replicated some of the dark patterns that make social media so damaging and addictive. This comes with being in a transition period, waking up from the sleepwalk-towards-fascism we’ve enabled by granting these Big Tech companies so much power. I would consider gamification of “engagement” (follower counts, like and boost counts), and “clout” chasing behaviour to be a hangover from that.

But for me at least, the problem isn’t just “the apps”. It’s me. I am anxious. There are lots of socio-political reasons for that anxiety, and I need to listen to them and name them. But I also know that on a day-to-day level, where I’m not immediately in danger: it is counterproductive to let myself exist in this state of panic. It is damaging to my physical health, it makes me less effective to fight what needs to be fought, and it sucks energy away from art and intellect.

Therefore, I want to interrogate the root causes making even my browser apps dangerous for my mental health.

the heady mix

I want to know I’ll be OK. My phone has taken on this role of reassurer, comforter, explainer of dangers, giver of good news, giver of bad news — all at once. What a heady mix! Because it’s real: it’s the device which mediates my communication with the outside world. Through this one device, I’ve received messages about family illness and death, grant decisions, job rejections and offers, political disasters — all mixed in with silly and fun messages from friends. How am I, an animal with an animal’s brain, supposed to differentiate all of that survival-level information from the device itself?

Our brains are good at making connections, seeing similarities, patterns. So, the phone becomes a magical thing, dispensing items necessary for our survival. It's why humans have always turned to divination: it's the illusion we can just bypass this uncertainty. Every internet prophecy can give approximately 3 milliseconds of comfort, before our anxiety spirals again. Because I do know, intellectually: divinatory answers can be comforting and provide a space to think further about an issue, but we can‘t really see the future. It would spawn infinite time-paradox chaos, because knowing the future would definitely change our behaviour. Unless you're Oedipus.

What should I do there? Block all anxiety-spiral websites? Unfortunately, I think it’s necessary. Browser extensions can do this, or phone apps — but I use so many browsers as a webby sort of person. I would have to do a URL block in my router’s settings.

I never got addicted to my laptop in this way. But crucially: I work on my laptop. I turn my laptop off, when I'm not using it. It isn’t always with me. Time spent on my laptop is more structured: I can choose when to engage with the world. Because it’s connected with work, it makes more sense to my animal brain. That is where I go to forage. Hilarious side note: as a penniless artist, my work is mostly unpaid — but my brain doesn’t know that.

practical things

On a practical level, I have implemented strategies to combat phone addiction. I have most apps on a timer to reduce "screen time" in the mornings and evenings. But I’ve gotten used to just overriding that. Should I… gasp… just turn my phone off? I do have positive uses for my phone during those times: audio apps that help with insomnia, meditation, exercise, tasks, winding down.

I don’t have the budget to have two separate devices, but that would be helpful. I have an older phone which still works, but Apple has helpfully rendered it almost inoperable with its slow-down OS updates. I'm keeping an eye on postmarketOS for this reason.

In the meantime, I think I’ll try to deal with the root causes: using good old-fashioned nervous system regulation techniques when I get an urge to “reassure myself” in this false, anxiety-perpetuating way.

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