Help! I’m addicted to my iPhone

New goal : staying away from my iPhone

I’ll be the first to admit, I spend WAY too much time on my iPhone. From Twitter to Instagram to Facebook mobile, I just can’t seem to tear myself away. I even caught myself browsing Instagram while I was caught in traffic the other day (not the first time, either). It wasn’t too long ago that I’d use my phone only for phone calls (fancy that), directions and looking up facts on Wikipedia to prove people wrong. The rest of the time, my phone sat silently on my desk, in my purse, or *gasp* in another room, and I didn’t feel compelled to check it every few minutes.

But in this age of social media, we’re constantly bombarded with notifications, likes, friend requests and comments from people we’ve only met once (or never), and sometimes it’s difficult not to judge self-worth by online popularity. It is for this reason that I find myself constantly checking my iPhone – has anyone liked my new photo? Do I have any responses to my tweet? There’s a certain amount of satisfaction when you do have notifications, just as there’s a feeling of disappointment when there are none.

When do you reach ‘over share’?

So this brings me to the question: How plugged in is too plugged in? Where is the happy medium? How much of our lives should we actually be sharing?

Don’t get me wrong, I am a huge advocate for social media. I have made and kept up with many connections through social media that I would have otherwise missed. But what I’ve been struggling with is living my experiences in the present, instead of just looking for opportunities to post something interesting online. This xkcd comic illustrates my point:

Life First

So here’s my current challenge – a challenge which I think we should all consider before picking up our iPhones – instead of meticulously documenting my experiences in order to appear ‘interesting’ online, I’m going to (try to) step away from my phone and actually enjoy my life as it comes, regardless of how many ‘likes’ that earns me.