My awakening moment about how smartphones fragment our attention span
I did a digital detox in July of 2020, I had become overwhelmed with Discord and Reddit moderation and trying to Keep Up. I burned out hard. I turned off all electronics for a month and uninstalled the apps and restricted my phone use to calls and responding to 3 close friend's texts at a set time each day--I didn't keep it on me at all. No video games, no TV, no watch or music streaming. I had my library of local music loaded to my trusty Zune and used that exclusively for music as the only device I carried with me.<p>I read through the entirety of the Percy Jackson books and the Heroes sequels, the Mortal Instruments, the Seven Realms Novels, and the complete unabridged HHGTG. All it took to get my book-a-day self back was bringing myself back to my teen years when I wasn't allowed on the computer with access to the internet and my texts cost .3 minutes to read or send and I only got 100/mo. I was averaging roughly 350 pages per day.<p>When I wasn't reading I was drawing or writing or outside being active when it was cool enough which improved my mental health even in spite of my heat based SAD.<p>At the end of the month I had the attention span when I got back online to attend to a cross country move and secure a job and an apartment by the end of August. I had been intending to move for the 3 years prior.<p>I wonder how I could go about taking advantage of the burst of creativity and focus while still being online enough to develop some of the software ideas I have that I never follow through on without getting overstimulated and distracted.