Disconnect to Connect: Why Low Data Plan is Superior

I’ve been struggling with a phone addiction for a long time now. I’ve been averaging about 4 hours a day, even more on the weekends – that’s about 60 days on my phone in a single year. That might not seem like a lot out loud. I’ve seen worse, so what’s 4 hours a day? That’s nothing. For me, it’s 60 days of my life gone, 60 days I will never get back.

What I’ve Done

I’ve tried black and white mode, uninstalling all apps – I’ve only left the basics. Even that didn’t seem to stop me. I just started using the web versions instead. In my mind, I just said, “I’ll make the experience bad; that way, I’ll get frustrated and quit.” That worked for a while. I was now averaging 3 hours and 30 minutes. That made a small dent, but I still wasn’t satisfied.

My old phone was dying, and I wanted a new one. But I had the problem that if I bought a new phone, I would just end up using it even more. I also wanted to save some money. After watching many reviews, I decided to go with an iPhone 13 Mini. Yeah, a $700 phone. Not as cheap as I was expecting, but hear me out; this phone is rather small but good. If I want to watch any content, I can’t really; the screen is small, 5.42 inches. That means I can’t really game or stream any content. That made me cut down my screen time further.

Social Media

Now we have a bigger problem. What about being connected to other people? What about your friends? I mean, everyone is on social media nowadays. I don’t really use social media. I find it useful but have never been intrigued by it. So what’s the fuss all about then? It’s YouTube. I have a YouTube addiction. Out of all the time I spend on my phone, two-thirds was on the YouTube web version. But since I’m into educational content, I always felt like it was okay, and that I’m learning. But that was just me coping with my addiction. This was mostly late at night when I wasn’t working on my computer. I needed a solution, and I couldn’t find one.

The Fix

Starting this year, I have decided to switch to a low data plan – a 1GB per month for 12 months, with unlimited calls and texts. This has completely changed how I use my phone. I now average a total of 30 minutes on my phone, which is about 7.5 days. On my first day, I had used about 48MB. This has forced me to almost not use my phone at all since I don’t have home internet, and I only have mobile data. So, I have to ration this very carefully.

It has been a week so far, and I don’t like it, but I can’t stop now; I bought this for 12 months in advace. I wish to continue this until the 12 months are over.