5 More Ways to Stop Your Phone Controlling You
and to stop you controlling other people through their phone.
Last time, we looked at six ways to get your phone usage under control during Lent, and hopefully beyond. These methods were mostly about placing limitations on ourselves. The phone is set up to notify you and demand your attention. Like a crying baby, it wants to be picked up and held. The social media networks are refined and honed to keep you hooked.
A few simple hacks, changing the settings and changing some habits can help get things under control. But this won’t be enough to stop the onslaught of messages which will just keep coming.
So let’s think about an often overlooked factor of all these messages flooding into our phones, demanding attention, time, resources and responses.
Where are these messages coming from?
Other people. Mostly it’s people you know and care about. Junk and spam are easy to ignore because there’s no emotional investment in the relationship. Delete. Move on. But what about that message about how you’re feeling from someone you care about? Or a last-minute request for help?
How do we help each other by changing the way we all use messages? How do we change expectations as well as behaviour?
The Biblical way is much more subtle and effective. It’s not just shutting things down at our own end, or demanding other change their ways. The Christian life is to be lived together as a Church. We need to help each other by being the change and showing the way. How we interact with the people who message us affects how they interact with us in the future.
So that’s the theme running behind the next five recommendations.
#7 Set Times to Check Messages
Why are you anxious? Cast your cares on the Lord! (Psalm 55:22) But why do you have so many cares? Because you’re being bombarded with messages. Whose fault is that?
YOURS. You keep inviting messages. By sending messages. You send a constant stream throughout the day in reply to the messages you get. STOP IT.
Decide that you’re only going to pick up your phone to check your messages/emails at certain times during the day. Maybe after breakfast, after lunch and/or before you stop work for the day. Earmark a block of time to read all the messages and respond to them. But schedule it. Do it. And then put the phone face down again until the next time to check it. Take control of your day. Don’t let your phone – and other people’s use of your phone – take control of your day. And stop taking control of their day.
#8 Send the Kinds of Messages You Would Like to Receive
You reap what you sow. My biggest problem is email. An awful lot of email is work you haven’t agreed to. The worst is that long document attached to a one line email which says ‘Thoughts?’. I hate getting messages like that. It’s like someone has pushed responsibility onto me. Am I going to be the bad guy and push it back?
The problem is that I’m guilty of sending messages that do that very thing. I fire off emails quickly because I’ve had an idea and I want to record it and put it in the mind of someone else who might be able to do something about it. I’m excited. But I’ve now pushed it onto others, and expect a reaction. For other people, my message of excitement is an intrusion, or work they’ve not agreed to.
I’m trying not to send those kinds of email anymore because I don’t want others to that kind of email me, fishing for my attention and time. That’s basic golden rule stuff.
So when I send an email to that person, it’s more considered and specific. I sent one the other day which began ‘You don’t need to reply to this’.
And once or twice, I’ve stopped typing the email half way through and deleted it, deciding the email just was not necessary.
If you feel obliged to respond to WhatsApp messages like ‘How are you?’’, don’t send messages like that. And don’t answer the ones that do that. Not straight away. And so remembering we’re trying to help each other:
#9 Tell People You’re Changing Your Phone Use
If there are people who are offended you don’t reply straight away, tell them next time you see them, or via a message, that you’re trying not to use your phone between 9am-1pm, or after 7pm or whatever. This means you don’t look rude. And you might inspire them to change their phone usage as they are also probably addicted to their phone.
Plus, your own vanity might mean you stick at the habit for longer because you’ve now said out loud what your new habit is. So if you message them at a time when you said you wouldn’t, you’ve broken your rule. Which is naughty. So tell someone and leverage your pride!
#10 Get a Watch
I used to wear a watch all the time. Then I got a phone. Now I use that. This means that when I want to know the time, I’m looking at a digital device that probably has a message for me containing open questions, emails, attachments and spam. Much easier to just get a watch. (But not an Apple Watch.) Or, better still, stop caring what the time is.
And get a clock for your bedside table, so that when you wake up in the morning, you’re not checking your phone. It’s a truly disastrous way to start the day, especially if you still get notifications creeping through. You wake up with an instant to-do list before you’ve even made the tea or read God’s Word which is the thing that will truly nourish you at the start of the day.
If you need to be contacted during the night by someone you’re caring for, put the phone on the other side of the room. Or ask them to help you by tell them to ring your landline at night. If the landline rings at 3am, you know you need to get that.
And finally:
#11 Have a Rubbish Phone
Where your treasure is there your heart and fingers will be also. Last time, I quoted the survey which reported that Americans touch their phones on average 2,617 a day. Why? Because it probably cost £900. That’s what good phones cost these days. And once you’ve spent that money, you will want value out of it. So you’ll fiddle with it incessantly.
So. Don’t get a shiny new phone. You don’t need one. Has your previous phone really stopped working? You can replace the battery and extend the life. You can delete loads of data clogging it up. Or does it no longer shine like it used to? It’ll almost certainly do another year.
I’ve intentionally not upgraded my phone for ages. My current phone is over four years old. I had the battery replaced after two years for £60 or so. It was a bottom of the range iPhone SE to begin with but it still plays podcasts, takes pictures of my kids, churches and trees (see my Instagram account for those last two), gives me access to work emails, tethers to my laptop and iPad, and allows me to make calls. It’s still magic. So what do I need a new phone for?
If you do have to get a new one, get one with loads of storage space as ‘this phone is full’ is the best excuse for unnecessarily getting a new one. I did that with my iPhone SE. Worst phone with loads of storage. It’s still not full. And I’m so over it.
And since I’ve just saved you £900 on a phone you don’t need, why not buy one of my books? In fact, buy two. The Gospel According to a Sitcom Writer is the funniest. But while you’re there, pick up a signed copy of The Sacred Art of Joking, which has a quite a lot of material on how Easter is kind of funny. Seriously. Oh, and get a CD of A Monk’s Tale, my comedy about Martin Luther and the 95 Theses. Go on. It’s all over HERE. You’ll have loads more time to read the books and listen to the CD because you’re not incessantly fiddling with your phone. You are welcome.
Or come and buy a book from me in person.
24th March 7.30pm St John’s Downshire Hill, Hampstead BOOK HERE
26th March 7.30pm St Giles’ Church, Derby BOOK HERE
31st March 7.30pm Anchor Anglican Church, Fowey, Cornwall BOOK HERE
1st April 7.30pm Emmanuel Church, Bristol BOOK HERE.
8th April 7.30pm St Andrew’s Church, Wimbledon BOOK HERE
Sweet or Salty?
The Popcorn Parenting podcast is set to return next week, when we’ll be kicking off with an episode on Turning Red that is released on 11 March. That episode will soon be followed eps on Encanto, Snow White, The Lion King and more.
So get into the reformed mythological mood and listen to an episode from a previous season. We’ve done episodes on Monsters Inc, Onward, Willy Wonka, Moana, Peter Pan, Hercules, Wall-E, The Iron Giant, Toy Story 1, 2 & 3 and the disaster movie that is Soul. Have a listen and subscribe.