Amy Lu's View

I spend too much time on my smartphone–just ask StanLee. Time spent using my phone is time  I should be petting him. It’s also time when I’m not terribly productive, or not paying attention to what’s going on around me. Or time when I’m trying to avoid being bored, which sounds good like a good thing, but some research suggests we actually need to be bored to promote creativity. We also might need to have entertainment-free time when it’s not so easy to escape uncomfortable emotions we might be avoiding. 

Me and StanLee and researchers (and probably even 4 out of 5 dentists) agree: Cutting back on how much I use my smartphone would be a good thing.

But I’ve never had any intention to stop using my smartphone to listen to audiobooks when I run.

And yet, I ran 5 MILES at the gym recently without using my smartphone to listen to an audiobook. This means I had NOTHING TO ENTERTAIN me as I ran around, and around, and around, the track. 

Obviously, I didn’t plan on doing this, but when I got to the gym and started changing in the locker room, I realized I had forgotten my earbuds at home. Ugh. I looked and looked, hoping they were hiding in a pocket somewhere, but no, they were really not there. I finally remembered and accepted that they were at home, happily charging away, so that I could be sure they wouldn’t run out of power on my run. 

Decision time. Should I just give up and put my clothes on and go back home and ride our exercise bike?

No, I had already invested so much time getting my ass to the gym, I had to at least get some benefit out of it. “You can do this,” I told myself. “At least for a couple of miles. Just do that, and we’ll take it from there.”

So now I feel pretty mighty, having made through not just two miles, but FIVE (yeah, I know I already said that). So much of running involves “mental toughness” so I’m proud of rising to this unanticipated challenge.

And…it wasn’t actually that terrible. The time went faster than I would have thought. 

Did I discover I was okay with being alone with my own thoughts while I ran? NO. Not only are my thoughts not that interesting, but running around in a circle (well, oval) is just not that pleasant. But there was more entertainment and distraction than I expected. Every time I passed the television monitor playing the show about adorable animals in distress, I had to check how they were doing (all happy endings I think). And nothing beats the entertainment of moral outrage which running on the track provides…there’s always SOMEONE walking the wrong way, or stopping on the track to watch the pool, or not looking when they walk across the track. Yesterday, I came within inches of running into someone which allowed me to distracted by indignation.

And I thought about blogging! How I could turn this anecdote into a post and all the partial posts I have that I want to finish and did I need to worry about any of my content going stale?

Expectations were important too–I expected my run to be terrible, so when it wasn’t SO awful, that made it seem better. And every time I hit a goal, I talked myself into doing a little more–another 5 minutes or another mile.

This was my second experience of not having digital entertainment or distraction just this weekend, as Friday night I forgot my phone when we went to see comedian Sarah Silverman. This was more than just an “ack I want my phone”–we actually needed my phone because the tickets were on them (and no, I don’t have any idea how to sign into any of the necessary accounts to get another copy of the tickets by using Chad’s phone).

Chad is the hero of this story–we were almost to the restaurant when I realized my blunder, so Chad dropped me off and headed BACK home to get my phone (about a 35 minute round trip excursion). 

So I got to sit at the restaurant just waiting for him, with, obviously, no phone to entertain me. And I was surprisingly, and uncharacteristically, Zen. I even enjoyed people watching (this restaurant was part of a hotel having a convention so that elevated the people watching) and just sitting. I was most surprised that I didn’t freak out too much about Chad’s mission–I felt bad that he had to go through the hassle and that our together time was cut into, but I accepted I couldn’t do anything to change the situation (and luckily we had enough time for him to get back and eat and we still made it to the show). I’m sure having a cocktail and an appetizer while I waited for him also helped me be more relaxed.  

I’m sticking with my plan to avoid running without entertainment (especially any run more than 10 minutes and any run inside) but maybe I can start trying to do other activities or have other experiences without my phone. Or, spend some time just doing nothing. 

Nothing, besides petting StanLee–and maybe having a cocktail.