These days everyone and their babies are glued to their smart phones. I don’t blame them, especially with this pandemic.

Mom of a toddler here and I depend on screen time for sanity. Not ideal but what can you do!

I’ve gotten to the point of relying on my phone for everything:

• work (productive apps, social management apps, etc)
• directions (maps)
• social connection (calling, social apps)
• entertainment (game apps, social apps)
• family connectedness (threads, websites)
• schedules (calendar)
• etc – the list goes on!

Mindless scrolling and tapping into every app becomes a habit. So I set a one month, two week, one week social detox where I told my followers I wouldn’t be online. I rationalized myself that my drive to build & engage my followers was the reason behind my addiction – I had a productive goal with scrolling after all.

Turns out my addiction is real. Instead of scrolling on Instagram I migrated over to Tiktok.

I will admit, Tiktok scrolling is purely for entertainment (and often shock over the humans we live on this planet with). But after a long day and putting Maya to sleep I would rather scroll the Tiktokverse than do anything else with my baby-free time.

It’s a problem.

Today (Saturday/Family Adventure Day) we set out for an indoor shopping mall since the air was hot and smokey with the BC wildfires raging. I realized I had left my phone at home as we turned off our street. My husband suggested we turn back to grab it but I wanted to challenge myself. I told him I’d just leave it.

All day there were instances where I wanted to pull out my phone to capture Maya doing something cute or picturesque to share on my social account. But instead of pulling out my phone and focusing on the buttons I needed to press to capture the moment I lived it. I watched her as she tried on the bikes at Toys R Us and took mental photos of her as she peered over the glass ledge from the top floor of the mall.

At the end of the day I realized I was far better without it.

Here’s to many more phoneless Family Days!

xoxo Maria 🙂