Welcome to the second installation of Tech Free Tuesday, where I give you my commentary, advice, and suggestions on easing up on your phone usage. Firstly, I want to thank all of you for your feedback last week. I loved seeing your comments and seeing how you felt validated knowing this wasn’t just a you thing. Definitely give that challenge a shot of putting your phone down for a few hours on the weekend. Last night wasn’t a good night for me. I was goofing off on my phone for several hours and felt exceedingly lousy about it. I struggle with impulse control with any semblance of short form content whether it be reels, Tik Toks, etc. So I rid myself of the clock app yet again. I thought maybe I could have more control over it after a month long break, but I alas, I was mistaken. I’m not fantastic at moderation so I typically don’t allow myself to have certain things in the house like ice cream or soda. It’ll have to be the same with Tik Tok or I’ll just binge. It’s okay to have setbacks though and it’s perfectly okay to recognize hey I don’t have the will power for this to be a healthy relationship for me. But before I had another dramatic break up with the app, I found a gem amongst the garbage! A creator with the username Mapu on Tik Tok has a series they call “Media I Consumed This Week Instead of Doom Scrolling”, and I was instantly inspired to follow in their footsteps. Let’s get into it. Here’s my list:

• White Lotus
• Ten Thousand Doors of January
• The Bell Jar
• Privacy is so Sexy
• Why Social Media is Not Fun Anymore

White Lotus is one of my favorite tv shows. It’s a Max original that follows a bunch of annoying rich people on their overpriced vacations. Insanity, drama, and murder ensues in every season. It drops every Sunday at 9 p.m. on Max and I look forward to it every week. It will keep you on the edge of your seat, and guessing the fates of the characters every season is a total blast. So far this season is interesting, but not my favorite. Season 2 was my absolute favorite so far. I can’t get enough of Jennifer Coolidge as Tanya. Spoiler alert: The Greg/Gary story line continuing in season 3 was PHENOMENAL. I can’t wait to see what happens.

Ten Thousand Doors of January is the book I just finished. It’s by Alix E. Harrow and it was kind of a really beautiful tribute to all of the adventures you go on every time you read a book. The story centers around January Scaller. She’s able to travel through different doorways that lead her to other worlds in search of her father, who’s currently lost in another world. I read a ton of horror and psychological thriller novels, so this was a fantastic break from that. It reminded me of reading when I was a kid in the best way. Adventure books are for adults too, people. It was my seventh book of the year and I started my eighth. The goal is 25 books in 2025.

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath is something I’ve been meaning to read for a while now. I was a bit of an English geek in high school and knew it was required reading in other schools. I’m about forty pages in, so I can’t be super detailed on my thoughts. So far though, I’m really liking it. It’s interesting to see the inner psyche of the main character in her early twenties and what she’s thinking a lot of the time. So much could be written about the journey of what it’s like to figure out who you want to be when you’re in your twenties and all of the crazy thoughts running through your mind 24/7. I look forward to see how the story pans out.

Privacy is so Sexy was an article on Substack from the SLADE9 publication. Definitely try out Substack if you haven’t. It’s a fantastic app that allows you to subscribe for free or paid to different publications. Picture a blog like this. Tons of options with a variety of topics. I subscribe to some mindful content and a lot of nifty technology publications. All the latest and greatest trends and skillsets to have to keep up in my career field. Privacy is so Sexy details a woman sitting at a bar about four years after giving up social media. She no longer wants to constantly seek validation from others or be in the spotlight. She wants to keep her achievements and desires to herself and not share them with the world. It feels freeing. It feels like we as a collective people overshare so much of our lives. So many of our thoughts were instantly posted on the internet for the world to see and critique forever. Imagine being a celebrity? Or dating a celebrity? It sounds like a total horror movie to have people constantly watching you! No sense of privacy or ability to do what you want. Not sharing every detail of our lives allows us to be able to grow and change the way we see fit, not being validated or shaped by the outside world. I’m glad there wasn’t social media when I was a rug rat. I’d hate for people to see all the mistakes I made in high definition on the internet.

Why Social Media is Not Fun Anymore is a YouTube video by Mina Le. She goes into her thoughts about why social media isn’t what it used to be. This never even occurred to me. I didn’t used to not like social media. I had a YouTube account I LOVED. YouTube is actually my favorite platform that I still view in a positive light. I have a lot of content creators I love on there that make quality videos. Very enjoyable. In the video, she actually made a pointed comment that the For You Page feature was one of the worst things ever invented. She’s dead on, in my opinion. It’s one of those things that sounds great in theory and doesn’t work out so well when implemented. People were meant to see things they liked and had suggested content. They accidentally fell into echo chambers and saw constant conflict online. Not awesome. She also went into the idea of whether the internet is where we can be our truest selves or we put on a mask for others to view. It’s somehow both for me. I’ll post graduation pictures on Facebook or Instagram and won’t say how much that journey sucked for me. But my Tik Tok likes and reposts are absolutely the most accurate representation of who I am as a person. It depends who’s going to see the content. I absolutely adjust what I post or say depending who I’m with or who will see it. Point is! We should bring back Webkinz and Club Penguin and call it a day with every other platform!

Books, podcasts, tv and so on count as media for me. If I’m watching TV or a movie, I still count that as a positive thing because while I’m still looking at a screen, I’m not scrolling on social media. Do you have any idea how long the list of movies and shows I’m supposed to try out is? I better get cracking for God’s sake. What I will say is something I learned this week from trying this out was that replacing habits is huge. If I sat back and looked at the wall to get myself to stop scrolling, I’d give up quickly. Replacing scrolling with books, painting, get togethers with friends, trying out recipes, and so on is so helpful so I don’t fall back into old habits. Moreover, learning to be bored is important. The constant stimulation is taxing after a while. Take a few minutes to just sit with your eyes closed and let your mind wander this week. You’re going to have thoughts. Acknowledge them and continue to let your mind wander. If you keep up the practice long enough, apparently your mind quiets. I’ve never tested this theory, but I’ll try it out a few times this week myself and see how it goes. Let me know what things you’ve been watching or reading lately instead of scrolling in the comments below! I’d love to have some more suggestions. Stop in later this week when I force my music taste on you and bug you to listen to some fun albums!