a forced phone cleanse

welcome to introspection ft. harsehaj! ⭐️ i’m harsehaj, a 19 y/o always up to something in social good x tech.

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onto today’s topic: a forced phone cleanse 📱 

while i was on a sailing expedition in maine, i didn’t have access to any technology including my phone.

the experience helped me learn how much i truly don’t need my phone. while detached from my phone, i realized that my usage can be categorized into 4 buckets:

1. communicating with friends/family (20%)

2. taking photos (10%)

3. listening to music (20%)

4. killing time (50%) 😞 

those iphone pickups scrolling through nothing while in an elevator add up.

it’s actually pretty absurd how our immediate instinct when we lose any stimulation is to open our phones and scroll. we’re so uncomfortable with silence and doing nothing that we never allow ourselves to just exist without any external stimuli.

on the boat, i never once caught myself reaching for a phone or really even missing it much. 🤷‍♀️ that in and of itself showed me in plainly how much i really need my phone. of course, i was also separated from reality and had no commitment to fulfilling any responsibilities that definitely come along with real life (ex. work, emails, banking, communication).

that 30 second scroll in an elevator though? while on the bus? unnecessary, and i’m in the process of challenging myself to pick up my phone less. i don’t need to address every single notification right away. i don’t have to fill up momentary boredom with tiktok either, and neither do you. :)

get your eyes off google maps and trying exploring by yourself! the present only exists in the physical world, not the digital one.

live in the present. 🧘‍♀️ 

daily opportunity + resource drops 🔍️