Practicing Consent With Your Smartphone

Do you own a smartphone?  Do you use it as your alarm clock? Your source for news? Social media? Your calendar? Your daily schedule? Do you ever pick up your phone with the intention to check the weather and find yourself knee deep in an article about something shocking? Sad? Controversial? Maybe you are reading through Buzzfeed lists of self-care activities you should be doing, wellness trends you must try, gadgets you must have. Or perhaps you are scrolling through your friend’s photos, living their best lives, doing things you wish you were doing in comparison to your present moment.  Our phones are really good at keeping us focused on anything but the present moment, what is right here right now.  And like most of us this feeling or experience probably occurs multiple times a day.  

Before the time of cell phones if you were out to dinner with a friend, you were out to dinner with that friend, if you were at the park, well then you were at the park and if someone was trying to get ahold of you they would leave a message on a machine that you wouldn’t be able to check from just anywhere until the late 90s. There was no FOMO (fear of missing out) quite like there is today. Obviously, times have changed and the advent of the smartphone has brought us much convenience, safety, instant driving directions, an ability to connect with a larger community, an opportunity for marginalized communities to be seen, heard and represented, efficiency, opportunities for small business to reach a wider audience, marketing, constant access to communication and sharing.  However, this can become overwhelming and overstimulating, especially for the Highly Sensitive Person. 

Highly sensitive people are believed to be more sensitive to stimuli of their environments and their senses. They are also known to experience a deeper sense of empathy. When a highly sensitive person is confronted with news articles, images, media content throughout the day it can have a significant impact on a person’s mood, ability to self regulate, beliefs about the self and level of anxiety. Oftentimes when we pick up our smartphones the choice is almost unconscious, and so may be the effects of consuming all of that overstimulating content. We may not even realize that we are sitting there with FOMO, wishing we were living other people’s lives, feeling guilty because we are not eating paleo, Keto, etc., feeling hopeless about politics, or the state of the world.  If this is a person’s internal monologue multiple times a day, or every time they pick up their smartphone it is not a wonder that most people are feeling on edge, especially the highly sensitive person. 

Now obviously we can’t all become Luddites like Fran Leibowitz (although one can dream) but we can practice consent with our phones. Consent to the images, news, media etc. we want to consume and when we want to consume it. Consent to when we read our text messages, our emails, our dms and when we respond. Consent to when we answer the phone, or even when we use our phone throughout the day. It can be helpful to utilize the various phone settings such as turning off notifications, turning our phones on silent or do not disturb or setting automated responses. Creating a morning routine that does not revolve around our phone when we first wake up can also be extremely supportive to HSPs. 

Imagine beginning your day with a conscious choice to look out the window, or listen to the sounds of your natural environment, to give consent to reading a book you have been meaning to finish, selecting music with intention, or choosing a podcast about something you have been wanting to learn.  Imagine scheduling a time for checking messages, scheduling an hour to participate in social media with intention, curating your social media so that it can be a reflection of how you want to feel. Scheduling time to read the news, or even getting your news from an actual paper and having the sensory experience of the smell of the paper, the sound of the pages crinkling as you flip through. These conscious choices can provide a sense of power and control in your morning versus waking up to the ceaseless demand of your email, or violent images to set the tone for your day.  

This practice can also be valuable for nighttime routines. When we scroll tirelessly before bed we may confront problems that we cannot solve, feelings that we cannot change, tasks that we cannot tend to because it is 10, 11, 12 PM, only contributing to worry and rumination when it is time to shut down.  Developing these tools and a sense of power in our relationship with our phones may contribute to some sense of power in how we feel and the symptoms we experience.  Being a human is hard, and being a highly sensitive one at that can be even more challenging in managing all that life throws at us. By practicing consent and intention with our phones, it may be one area in our life where we can have a sense of control over the stimulus that impacts us.

Warmly,

Danielle Kardum, LMFT #114847

https://thrivetherapyandcounseling.com/danielle-kardum

916-287-3430