Til Death Do Us Part
The damn phones
A few weeks ago, I almost died.
I was biking home through what started as a light drizzle and turned into a full-on downpour. I had my earbuds in, biking down Lexington Avenue, listening to a stupid podcast and directions.
I hit a pothole, one earbud popped out, fell to my left, and out of pure reflex I turned to reach and grab it. A car screeched behind me. The driver rolled down his window and mouthed, “You stupid motherfucker. You could have died.”
He was right. I almost died over an earbud.
I am ashamed to admit I have a phone addiction. On any given day, I average three to four hours of screen time.
I spend a fifth of my waking life touching glass.
It’s not for a lack of trying either. I’ve tried every phone-limiting app under the sun.
The ones that gamify your progress. The ones that guilt you into logging off. Even one that’s an AI you have to argue with to get into your apps.
Nothing works. And I know I’m not alone!
I’ve read plenty of essays from people struggling with their phone addiction and even talked to several friends about it too.
And when people try to escape their phones, they always fall into two camps:
Quitters — Those who switch to dumbphones and effectively remove themselves from so much of their social life.
Losers — The rest of us, who block or delete our time-consuming apps only to spend three hours a day scrolling LinkedIn or something instead.
But my shame doesn’t come from the habit itself. It comes from what it costs me in everyday life.
Like when my girlfriend made a nice dinner the other night. We sat down and started eating.
She began telling me about a really tough day at work, about one of her pediatric patients who doesn’t have food due to the government shutdown and cuts to SNAP.
While she’s chatting, I get a buzz on my phone and watch, glance down to check if it’s important or urgent (surprise it’s not).
I refocus on the conversation, ask her to repeat something I missed.
She did, but I could see the disappointment in her face.
Or when I’m working on my interactive art piece for my big upcoming show.
I’m a bit stressed about what to make for my next piece. I figure I’ll check a few apps for inspiration.
I fall down a bottomless feed of “research” before forgetting what I am doing in the first place, hopping over to Twitter or Instagram and answering some texts.
I lose an hour and good flow. I tell myself I’ve got nothing. I punt the piece to tomorrow.
I end the day feeling guilty and tired for not getting my work done.
Or how I want to get in better shape. Put on a few pounds of muscle while improving my cardiovascular endurance.
That means a few hours running and a few hours in the gym a week. But also a good diet and sleep.
But each night, the hours fly by, answering messages, watching another reel, refreshing the timeline.
The glow of the phone pulls me away from my own health.
Six hours of sleep tonight it is.
I tell myself I’m ambitious, that I have goals and dreams, that I’m working to build something meaningful in my professional life and in my personal life.
But I have a fucking phone butting in on all of it.
Why? Because it does everything.
It’s my pacifier when I’m bored. My mouth to the world. My mirror, my camera, my studio, my alarm, my friends, my family.
It sees me when I’m sleeping and it knows when I’m awake.
It is the most powerful device I own and it owns me right back.
And what makes it worse is that I know why it works. I know the loops, the triggers, the little dopamine systems baked into the UX.
I even know some of the people who built them. The smart people I grew up with who made it to Meta and Google, now spending their days perfecting the art of stealing my attention.
They’re brilliant, well-paid, and doing exactly what they were hired to do: make sure I never look away.
If I don’t achieve the things I dream about, it won’t be because I lacked talent.
It’ll be because I lost the war to the thing in my pocket.
After the death of my left earbud, I decided it’d be too expensive to replace it with new headphones.
I opted for wired headphones at $10 instead. They fall out of my ears every time I try to run with them. Eventually I gave up and started running with no music at all.
At first it sucked. I ran slower. My mind wandered. I felt bored.
I’d still check the time impulsively on my phone, open notifications, even respond.
I was frustrated with this too. And decided to leave my phone at home altogether.
And something shifted.
I was at peace the entire run, nothing to distract me but the world around me, not the world at my fingertips.
I soon realized it was the first time in years I had been more than a few miles away from my phone.
It’s insane to think I have been tethered to this device for close to a decade.
The internet used to be a place we’d visit at the library or on our family computer for a few hours.
Now it’s shackled to me all day.
But for those 40 minutes in the morning when I’m on a run without it?
I feel like I’m on parole.
I can’t fully quit. My phone is how I build my work, share my art, talk to my parents, stay in touch with friends, navigate the world, and make a living.
It’s not optional for the life I want to live. But I don’t think my goal is to “win the war” against my phone. It’s to win one small battle at a time.
To have one dinner without being interrupted.
To work a few hours without distractions.
To sleep 8+ hours tonight.
Because when I’m out there running without music, no phone in sight, for those forty minutes a day, I feel free.
And if I can create a few more moments of freedom and presence, that’s progress.
The phone will be there with me at the end of the day, everyday.
Til death do us part.
What I Did This Week — Gallery Prep
I am preparing for my pop-up gallery at cha& tea bar on November 10th! Only a few tickets left :D
Something Beautiful — Bird
This is a beautiful watercolor bird!
Thank you
for sharing your work with the world I can assure you that the world is better the more (you specifically) post.Unrelated but sorry to all the Blue Jays’ fans this weekend that was brutal.
banger piece.
Great piece, I really connect with the “can’t fully quit” part. So much of the work I do is online. It’s about learning balance.