You reached for the phone to answer one message. Forty minutes later your neck is stiff and you could not say what you read. You put it down, and inside a minute it is back in your hand. When I can't sleep I pick the phone back up and play something until my brain's tired enough to quit.
A phone is hard for many people to put down, and part of this may be simply that.
01
What you do with the phone
It may fill every gap.
The line at the store, the red light, the minute before a meeting starts. The end of the evening, when the house goes quiet. The moment after something difficult is said.
You may scroll past things without reading them. You may check the same three places in a loop. Afterward you are more tired, and a little flat.
You have deleted the apps and put them back.
People call it a bad habit, or say you are hooked.
It can cost you hours, and sleep. The people in the room with you may come to feel they are competing with it.
02
What the scrolling may be protecting
"Strong is the only version of me they know."
The phone gives you somewhere to look. Under Strong, it may be how a hard day stays off your face, at home and everywhere else. I keep it inside. Nobody at home could tell by looking at me that I'd had a rough day.
Read about Strong →"If everyone is okay, then I'm okay."
The phone takes you out of the room without your leaving it. Under Peace, it may come out when there is tension, or a conversation you would have to start.
Read about Peace →"Stillness is where it catches me."
The phone lets you check. Under Ahead, the scrolling may be watching: the news, the messages, the thing that might have changed in the last ten minutes.
Read about Ahead →Others are possible, and often it is none of these.
03
What is under the rule
Under Strong, the fear may be that if they see you struggle, you lose the only standing you have. What would answer it is being seen at less than full capacity and still being held.
Under Peace, the fear may be that someone's disappointment means you did something wrong. What would answer it is being able to disappoint someone and still be alright.
Under Ahead, the fear may be that if you stop managing, something goes wrong again. What would answer it is safety that doesn't require vigilance.
04
Three questions, in order
First, for Peace and Strong. Protecting them, or protecting yourself?
If the phone comes out so that someone else won't be upset, that is the Peace answer. If it is for your own sake, that leaves Strong or Burden, and a different question separates those two: if someone helped you and literally nobody would ever know, would you accept? Yes is the Strong answer. Still no is the Burden answer.
Second, for Peace and Ahead. Are you watching for someone getting upset, or for something going wrong?
Someone getting upset is the Peace answer. Something going wrong is the Ahead answer.
Third, for Ahead and Strong. Is it that something might go wrong, or that someone might see you're not coping?
Something might go wrong is the Ahead answer. Someone might see is the Strong answer.
If none of them moves anything, there is not enough to tell. That is a result, and a common one here.
Most scrolling is not a rule. Boredom is enough to explain a lot of it. If the phone has become something you can't manage and it is harming your work or your sleep, that is worth raising with a doctor or a licensed clinician.
Three questions, three chances to take something away. Subtraction is no more than that.
05
One thing to try this week
For three days, each time you notice the phone in your hand and don't remember picking it up, write one word for what was happening just before.
Don't put the phone down on account of the exercise.
After three days, read the words together.
How this works as a strategy is on Numbing.