Over 2 years ago I gave myself a challenge… it did not go so well, but I figured I should close out at least one of the things I started on this blog before I write a post about my next grand idea.

What happened

Honestly, I mostly just forgot about it. I did start off pretty strong. I actually did uninstall the apps I said I would, and I intentionally made my browser a pain to use through copious extensions. For a while, my overall screen time did go down.

However, despite never officially giving up, I gradually chipped away at my rules until there was essentially nothing left. First I reinstalled Instagram, because there are still some group chats I’m in where it’s the only platform we can all agree upon. I told myself it was only going to be for chats and gave myself only 20 minutes on the app every day via Android’s screen time controls. Naturally, the posts and reels I had to swipe past to get to the chats ended up pulling me in, and I gradually had to raise my time limit so I’d have time to message people… this cycle made me into a regular Instagram user again.

A similar story played out for the other problematic apps on my phone. There is a bit more of a story with Youtube, I may write another post about that one at some point.

The browser extensions hung on quite a bit longer. I still actually block recommended videos on Youtube on my desktop browser, and I have mostly kicked my Reddit habit. (Although honestly, the site had been going downhill for a while.) However, I definitely still have a few go-to sites for a “quick hit” of content that I frequent all too often.

As for my goals, the only one I accomplished was finishing A Crown of Swords, I actually finished the whole series, although it took almost 2 years.

Instead of making the Reddit Liberation extension work on Firefox, I ended up just cobbling together some uBlock filters to block every part of Reddit except for comment threads, so I could still get useful information by appending “reddit” to my Google searches, but I couldn’t get sucked into viewing more posts. I actually forgot to migrate my filters when I reinstalled my OS, but so far I’ve yet to go back to regular Reddit use so I guess I’ve grown out of them.

What’s next

I am still working to reshape the role that technology plays in my life. I think I’ve had a little bit of success in making myself less of a content junkie over the last 2 years, but I’m not ready to write about it yet. For now, I think HGModernism has said everything on the topic that I’d want to. I’ll write another post when I feel I have something substantial to add.

I will say, though, Minimalist Phone (Android Only) has worked wonders. The key advantage it has over other screen-time-controlling apps is that it makes you decide exactly how much time you want to spend on an app before you can open it, and then reminds you if you’ve exceeded that amount of time. This is much less frustrating and much more powerful than daily screen time limits. I don’t think I’m ever going to use a phone without it again.