Turn Your Phone Off
When was the last time you turned your phone off?
Not to reboot it because a screen was frozen and not because your battery inconveniently died, but because you actively decided to turn it off. I would wager most people will say never.
“It was amazing to lay in total peace, listening to the recorded sound of waves and flute music for a solid thirty minutes and when the time was up and I was readying to leave, I paused for a moment looking at my phone wondering, do I really want to turn it back on? ”
I was at my acupuncturists when this idea came to me. I normally silence my phone, but lately I’ve been using the vibrate feature and I knew I would be able to “hear” that and it would taunt me as I laid there unable to move with needles stuck all over my back. I didn’t have time to go to settings and change them and it occurred to me to just turn the phone off. It can’t make any noises when it’s turned off. So I did.
It was amazing to lay in total peace, listening to the recorded sound of waves and flute music for a solid thirty minutes and when the time was up and I was readying to leave, I paused for a moment looking at my phone wondering, do I really want to turn it back on? I did, of course, because, well, we all have our phones on all the time. But I started to enjoy this weekly ritual of turning off my phone and started leaving it off on the drive home. I then started turning it off for doctors appointments, then in-person meetings, sometimes even when meeting up with friends. When I know my kids are taken care of and I don’t need to track time, I have found it quite enjoyable to turn it off. I even ventured to turn it off while I was writing this blog.
“We turn the lights off when we leave a room, we turn the television off when we leave the house....We turn these things off when we are done with them. We never turn off our phones because we are never done with them...”
I know this is a radical idea because, quite honestly, it feels weird every time I do it. Which is kind of weird, isn’t it? What other electronic instrument do we leave on all the time???? We turn the lights off when we leave a room, we turn the television off when we leave the house, we at least close our laptops when we are done working, we turn off the oven when we are done cooking. And I think the point is in the language. We turn these things off when we are done with them. We never turn off our phones because we are never done with them and that, I think, is significant.
For people with ADHD completion is really important. Being able to complete a task is what allows them to move on. I still remember the first time I logged onto to Facebook and scrolled and scrolled and scrolled and thought “When do you get to the end?????” I was thinking of it like a document that I could read to the end and call it complete, but social media is designed to never let you feel complete. Our phones are always popping up with notifications, something else to look at or check. Our phones offer no completion, which is why people with ADHD can really feel held hostage by their phone and frequently cite it as the biggest, most annoying, time suck in their life. So my clients and I make up rules, download apps meant to help limit screen time, and other structures to help manage a beast with no end, and to that list I have added one more suggestion, it’s the most fun to say to the clients I zoom with because the look of complete shock and puzzlement is priceless when I suggest, “What about just turning it off completely?”
I don’t suggest this idea lightly. I know it isn’t as easy as it should be. For one thing, many of us use our phones as our clocks. How will we know when to turn it back on? If you have children or elderly parents, it’s also needed for emergencies. Most of us have no longer have land lines. And finally, it just feels weird. But if you have a time, when you know those who might need to contact you in an emergency can rely on someone else (when I know my kids are at school or with another adult, lets say) and it’s a definitive amount of time (the span of a doctors appointment or a get together with a friend or the length of time it takes to write this article), I encourage you to try it. It feels weird at first, but then it feels oddly liberating. Quiet even, more quiet even than when you have your phone on silent because nothing is coming through, there is nothing to check.
For my clients with ADHD, this is an idea I am starting to suggest more and more, but I think for everyone this is a movement that would do us all good, to turn off our phones and declare ourselves done with the electronic world, even if just for a little bit.