I know one thing for sure… my phone will never tell me to go away. Never tell me to go to sleep. It’s the worst kind of friend: the one that acts like a best friend. The cigarette we all smoke.
And the place it’s most sinister is in my bedroom, functioning as an alarm clock.
If you are under 35, there is an 88% chance you are using your phone to wake up, and those over 35 still use phones as alarm clocks most of the time, just slightly less often.
https://www.sleepjunkie.com/sound-the-alarm-the-tones-and-trends-of-waking-up/
The alarm clock “function” on our phones is not the problem, of course. It’s the baggage that comes with it. The late-night scrolling. The middle-of-the-night alerts. The general lack of deep sleep. The waking up and feeling around the bedsheets for your phone even before peeing.
The simplest, most elegant, and obvious solution is to leave your phone outside your bedroom and just use an alarm clock.
I’m here to report back on what happens when you do just that.
Confession: My Average Phone Habits
Now, before I talk about alarm clocks, I need to confess something.
I like to think I’m better than average with my phone use. That I can resist the urge to scroll. You see, I'm guilty of looking around public spaces and feeling, somehow like I’m a bit above it, that I'm not participating. But I am. And it turns out I’m not exceptional at all. I’m completely average.
Proof of my averageness comes every Sunday, when Apple sends me my weekly screen time report. I was spending, on average, 4 hours and 30 minutes per day on my phone, and that’s very, and exactly, average. If you add up those hours, you come up with 68 days in a year.
And it’s pretty much the same around the globe:
https://explodingtopics.com/blog/smartphone-usage-stats
It’s not that I don't enjoy all that time spent snuggling my phone, but so often I have little proof of the vast majority of time spent on my phone. It just evaporates.
I wanted a bit of a phone diet. A little more value for those hours and days spent on a screen.
The Turning Point: An Alarm Clock
On the surface it makes sense that our smartphones have become our alarm clocks. A smartphone already does so much, and its slick app-driven way of setting multiple alarms, sounds, even alarms for different days is pretty advanced compared with an old piece of tech like an alarm clock.
But, having no self-control, I could benefit from some boundaries. To save me from my average self.
So I bought an alarm clock and made one simple rule: my phone is not allowed in my room when it’s bedtime.
(It must leave the bedroom completely. No little cheating, like charging my phone on the other side of my bedroom. In fact, I moved my charger to the kitchen. The farther away the gym, the less you go, right?)
What Really Happened
Before this little swap, I had a prediction that I might reduce my phone time by 30 minutes a day by not bringing my phone to bed.
So silly of me. I was completely wrong.
After a week, and a bit of withdrawal, I saved a crazy 2 hours a day. My phone use dropped from about 4 hours 30 minutes to 2 hours 30 minutes.
(I actually had to double check over the following weeks to make sure it was not an error.)
This staggering drop in phone use forced me to look a bit more honestly at how an average night would unfold:
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11:30pm to 12:30am, looking at stupid shit on my phone before bed
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3:00am to maybe 3:30am, half mindless scrolling and telling myself it will help me fall back asleep (this happened probably every other day)
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6:30am to 7:15am, lay in bed and look at phone
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7:30am, walk with phone in hand to bathroom
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7:45am, walk with phone in hand to kitchen
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7:45 to 8:30am, read stupid and agitating news and social stuff while eating and drinking coffee
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8:30am, off to work where I will be on another screen
And there it is...two hours of phone use, thinly sliced into my day without even a second thought.
Just swapping my phone for an alarm clock saved me 2 hours a day, which adds up to 30 days in a year. Every year.
(Go ahead and check with your phone calculator.)
Waking Up in Control
Nothing feels quite as good as waking up in control, without some anxious urge to feel around the bedsheets with eyes still half closed looking for your phone.
It's gross. Make it gross. You are a grown-up. A grown-up does not grope around for his or her little phone buddy before rising to greet the day like a human being.
Remember your phone is an asshole. It does not care about you or your precious sleep. It shines its little blue light on your brain waves. Treat him like a dog. Make him sleep in the guest room. No mercy. Sweep the leg.
If You Want to Give It a Go
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Ditch your phone from your bed and charge it somewhere else. Like in the kitchen or office.
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Get a book or magazine to replace that need to scroll. (Highly recommended because going cold turkey from iPhone to staring at the ceiling is a brutal adjustment.)
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Sleep way better. The impulsive urge to wake up in the middle of the night searching for your phone will soon fade and liberate you.
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Wake up feeling in control of your day. When you wake up, you will not reach for your phone right away. It will be glorious. You will wake on your terms. Your phone awaits you in another room, and checking it will feel like a true treasure as you get to see what you might have missed...but on your terms.
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Without even trying, you might save 30 days a year from useless phone activity.
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Keep your alarm clock and never go back.
Check out our very curated range of unique alarm clocks ranging from $30 to $580.
Next blog idea: How to poop without your phone?
