I deleted social media from my phone – and my screen time didn’t go down

I need to find the root of the problem…

Recently, I’ve been concerned about how much time I spend on my phone. What has surprised me is that social media isn’t the only culprit for my excessive screentime.

The time spent on my phone comes from other applications, too. Messages, scrolling through Google Docs, looking at photos, etc.

Don’t get me wrong — none of these things are bad. But my excessive use of them raises questions about how I’ve trained my brain to operate.

This led me to a New Year's Resolution: Go without social media for as long as possible. Simple, right?

I’d get rid of social media, and then my screen time would massively go down. Great plan. There’s just one problem — it’s not working.

On my worst days, here is what my pickup stats look like. The number usually falls between 150 and 250. That means that around every five minutes, I pick up my phone — even without the allure of social media apps which I’ve managed to stay away from the past two weeks.