Zizi Sparks: How I started curbing my screentime and what's next

Excessive cellphone use is becoming an increasing issue. Photo / Getty Images

OPINION

At the risk of sounding older than I am, when I was a kid we played outside rather than on phones, if we were bored we read a book or practised a musical instrument.

I'm old enough to remember that, but also young enough to have had a cellphone throughout high school - though for most of that time it was only capable of texting (500 a month), calling (which we never did) and playing snake (which we always did).

It had real buttons and if you wanted to access the internet you had to use a computer.

Now we live in a time where information is at our fingertips and cellphones are basically mini computers.

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While being constantly switched on and accessible is good in some ways, I recently decided I'd had enough and started turning my phone on to do not disturb mode between 9pm and 7am.

Then one morning I forgot to turn it off that mode and over the past few months I've had it on do not disturb more and more.

We recently reported studies had found we typically spend three hours and 15 minutes each day on our phones and up to 11 hours on all media devices.

Now, this is embarrassing. Last Sunday I spent a whopping six hours on my phone according to its digital wellbeing section. It included two hours mindlessly scrolling Facebook and 80 minutes doing the same on Instagram and about 90 minutes on my web browser doing things like reading the news.

On a weekday it's more like the above figures at three to four hours, mostly in the evenings.

That doesn't include time spent on my work cellphone.

However, putting my phone on do not disturb has allowed me to have a little bit of control over the time I do spend on it. Rather than pick it up every time I get a notification, I only pick it up when I want to. Maybe there are multiple notifications or messages to catch up on, maybe there are none.

I've made a start when it comes to curbing cellphone use, but that hasn't stopped me from getting into deep holes scrolling social media as my stats show.

I'll often realise it's happening and tell myself "just five more posts" or "I'll stop at a certain time" but inevitably I'll fail.

So starting today I've put app timer limits on social media, meaning once I've spent 40 minutes on Instagram across a day, it will shut down and be locked for the rest of the day.

Putting my phone on do not disturb has been a good way to start monitoring my screen time but I've got a long way to go.

I'd encourage everyone to look at the screen time data their phone collects. You'd be surprised and maybe embarrassed by what it tells you but education is the first step.