Smart Phone Usage

Week 1

Today so far (11:40 am) my usage has been an hour on my phone. My social networking is 33 minutes, creativity 12 minutes, and productivity 4 minutes. I think my networking is 33 minutes because right when I wake up I go on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, and Tiktok. When I took this quiz I was not very surprised that I scored pretty high. I am considered addicted to my phone, but I don’t think that I would need to see a psychologist or psychiatrist because of this. I have slowly started to put my phone down and be in the moment with the people I am with. This has been challenging because I now live alone due to COVID and am only around other people while working.

Week 2

I mainly use my phone for social media and communication. I spend a lot of time on my phone while I am not working. I think I spend about 4–5 hours on my phone daily. I think I mostly use TikTok and imessage. I also use my phone for work to look up my schedule or look up how to make drinks that I am not familiar with. I think check my phone about 30 times a day. I often take “breaks” while doing homework and will go on my phone.

Week 3

My favorite apps to use are Facebook, Tiktok, Instagram, and Snapchat. I think these are the apps that I use most throughout my day. Out of all the apps I used I think I use TikTok the most I could spend hours scrolling and not realizing it. I feel like using these apps helps me stay connected to old friends I went to high school with, family, and my current friends.

Week 4

So far since September 20th, I have been on my phone for 168 hours. I think that is lower than what I thought it would be. I think this is because I started a second job so I have less free time. Although, after work, I sit on my phone and “catch up” on social media and notifications.

Week 5

A good way to mitigate away from your phone is to set a time to stop checking emails and notifications. By doing this it can help you from obsessively checking your phone and notifications. Another way to help you is to turn off your wifi so you do not get sucked down the rabbit hole. Checking one notification can lead you to be on your phone for hours.

Week 6

I was not able to do this experiment since I need my phone for work. Although I can imagine it would be hard for me to do. I think I would feel frustrated not being able to be on my phone and I would feel like I was missing out on something. Also, I think my parents would be concerned because they are texting me all the time during the day and they would think something happened to me.

Week 7

While doing this experiment I wanted to open my phone and check if there were notifications or if I missed anything. I think I felt this way because I am so used to always opening my phone and sitting on social media or checking texts. I think it frustrated me to not be able to open my phone since it was sitting there in my hand. I think that my phone sometimes has control over my life.

Week 8

I made an excel spreadsheet with all of the data my phone and moment has collected. The results really surprised me. I knew I spent a lot of time on my phone but did not realize it was this much.

After entering all of the data I realized the time I spent is crazy. The total came to 291.82 hours and once I calculated that to days I couldn't believe it. How could I have been on my phone for 12.16 days in this short amount of time? I can’t even imagine how many days I have spent on my phone this year.

I then calculated my pickups and once again I was very surprised. I didn't realize I could have 200+ pickups in one day.

I was correct with my most used app being TikTok I knew that I spent the most time on it. My phone would not let me go all the way back to when the project started. This graph is from November 8-November 29. I think the numbers would be consistently the same if I had the data from the beginning of the project.

Now looking back at what I first said I was correct that I spend 4–5 hours on my phone every day. I think I spend most of my time on my phone at work now since I work at a golf course and it is the offseason. I do use my phone productively at work when I have to look at the tee sheet and other things while working. Although I do use it productively I also use social media apps a lot while working and the messages app since it can get pretty boring. I also use my phone a lot at my other job as well since it is offseason and we are very slow.

Moving forward I am going to continue to monitor my usage and try to cut back and use my time more wisely. This is going to be hard for me to do since my Fiance is currently deployed so I am constantly checking my phone and responding to him. I do this because we have limited time to talk due to the 15 hour time difference.