Soothe Me, Smartphone
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What's Your Smartphone Addiction Trying To Tell You?
Last week, I found myself reaching for my smartphone hundreds of times throughout the day with an unusual level of desperation. While I am certainly prone to turning to my phone during times of boredom and such, this felt different. Desperate is the best word I can use to describe it. I didn’t necessarily even unlock my phone; I simply touched the button that turned on the locked screen to ostensibly check if I had any new notifications. (My notifications don’t make sounds, but they do appear on my locked screen.) The urge to reach for my phone was uncontrollable; I couldn’t explain it and I couldn’t stop it. It’s as if the phone was a talisman, something with magical powers that I had to lay my hands on repeatedly throughout the day, like a prayer that becomes an unconscious ritual.
As I started to notice what was going on, the negative self-talk started as well. I had no self-control. I should really throw my smartphone into the trash because clearly I couldn’t handle owning one.
I brought this up to therapy, aiming all of my blame at the smartphone itself—it was making me behave this way and I hated everything about it! In speaking with her, though, I began to uncover what was actually going on with me. Although I thought I was feeling angry, that’s often the sentiment that we hide behind. Digging deep, I started to notice a well of disquiet energy floating beneath the surface of my consciousness. It had been there all week, tugging at my consciousness, but I had fervently avoided paying any attention to it. I dug deeper, tapping into that uneasiness, and found another well—this one filled with grief.
Suddenly, I saw the cycle clearly. Every time I had a surge of emotion, I lunged for my phone. Instead of interrogating the feeling, I used my device as a way to deflect it. When I connected with this well of deep sadness within me, I felt empathy for myself. I saw my overactive phone addiction as something else: a soothing mechanism. What I needed in those moments was comfort, and I was seeking it in the easiest way I knew how.
Our smartphones give us an escape from ourselves, and I think that’s the biggest thing they take away from us.
Once I was able to understand what was going on, I was able to change my behavior. I understood where these urges to lunge for my phone were coming from; they were coming from a deep place inside of me that needed a bit of comfort in that moment. And so, I started to comfort myself. Each time I had that impulse to grab my phone, I gave myself a little internal hug. I recognized that I was having a tough time. I thought of my dad and I sent him my love. I took a second to feel his love deep inside my heart, and then I carried on with whatever I was doing.
And guess what? The urges began to fade. I think the reason why they were so fierce before was because I wasn’t doing anything internally to address this deep-seated need that I had for comfort.
Now that I think about it, the signs were all there. My father’s photograph is the image that I see on my locked screen when I turn it on. But even after all those times of reaching for my phone and seeing my father’s smiling face, I didn’t realize that what I really needed was to spend some time with him in my heart.
Self-soothing has become a buzz word these days, but I never really understood what it meant until last week. Was self-soothing shoving a candy bar into my mouth or blowing up at my husband? The fact is, in order to soothe ourselves, we have to be in touch with our emotions—a skill that becomes harder and harder as we become more and more addicted to our devices.
Has self-soothing become yet another skill, like memorizing phone numbers or map-reading, that we’ve farmed out to our phones?
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