So yeah, I’m guilty of reaching for my iPhone too often. With friends, during lunch, waiting for the bus, in a taxi, looking after the kids, in the bathroom, brushing my teeth, the last thing at night. In any spare moment I’d pick up my iPhone and refresh Twitter, check for new photos on Instagram, read articles I’d saved in Pocket, it was an endless stream of things to fill any gap of time.via Removing Distractions - Dan Counsell
My wife would say that's how she views my behaviour with my iPhone. If we go out for a meal -- with or without company -- I feel compelled to launch Swarm and check-in. This is usually right after the food arrives. I snap a carefully composed photo, taste the food and post my "mini" review (with pushed to Facebook and Twitter). Of course, now that I have that image I must polish it, square it, and post to Instagram. In between bites of food and ale, we converse, with me occasionally checking Twitter to see if anyone responded.
Aargh! I am the asshole at the table who is only halfway engaged with "being present".
So how have I started to deal with this? I started by turning off notifications on my iPhone (and iPad). I reduced the down to the just notifications that are actually useful or important. Like incoming text messages from my wife. I kept the notification about spending on my credit card. Reminders and calendar alerts are still turned on. Weather alerts from Dark Sky. Everything else is turned off.
The next phase is to turn off some of my social media feeds. Last week I suspended my Facebook account. I wasn't happy with my interactions on Facebook anyway. The drawback to turning off Facebook is that it has become harder to update the Facebook pages that I manage. I'll have to think about how to handle that one long-term.
As for the phone itself, I am consciously leaving it in my pocket when I go out or in a cupboard when I am home.
