Single-purpose devices
My second of three brief posts tonight.
Lately I've been thinking about my relationships with my phone, the Internet, and music.
To sum up where I'm at: I'm in the process of becoming more intentional with technology, in the aspects that show up in my life.
I've fallen in love with music again. In recent months it's the thing that's helped me through difficult days. I've been using an old iPhone SE with foobar2000 installed to play music. This allows me to turn off my main phone during the night to get away from messages and notifications. Although this old device does not have a SIM card, it can still connect to my home Wi-Fi. This has become a slippery slope, as I'll be listening to music and then want to learn more about an album or a band, and then visit Reddit to peruse discussions, and then peak at the front page, and then see a headline that makes me feel crappy, and then...
What I've realized is that it's not necessarily screen time that I want to reduce (because would using an old iPod nano count as screen time in the way that makes tracking meaningful?). It's really about reducing time on the Internet. Peak at the trending posts on Bear, on any given day of the week, and one is sure to find commentary on the state of the web. I get the sense that we need to be more deliberate in our exposure to the Internet, and to question the default state of always being connected.
SO! Yesterday I adjusted my router settings to block my iPhone SE on my home Wi-Fi network. Now it cannot receive calls, nor connect to the Internet (without it being a hassle to look up the login details and change the settings—just enough friction!). It's now a single-purpose device, used only to play music (and, OK, to set an alarm for waking up). Bluetooth remains available for connecting to speakers. I don't count the screen time I spend on it, because the extent of my stimulation comes from the names of songs and the album art of my tracks. It's also quite promising for the device's battery; I haven't had to charge it all day!
To be fair, I lose out on learning about bands while I'm listening to music, but this is a challenge for me to be more attentive in listening. I can save the deep dives on Wikipedia for later. Plus, it does make me wonder why I should care about the opinions of strangers on the Internet about what's good or not. I should like what I like, right?
I just want to be free. To do what I want to do. And get loaded. And have a good time.