Diary of A Gen Z Student: I'm giving up my phone for two weeks - wish me luck! 

Jane Cowan: "I’m getting particularly fed up with my relationship with technology. I see how it takes from my sleep, distracts me from college work, and causes me to be less engaged when I’m with my friends and family." Picture: Moya Nolan.

Every morning, I wake up to the blaring ‘dling, dling, dling’ of the alarm on my phone, I roll over, press the snooze button, and sleep for another 10 minutes. When the alarm goes off a second time, I turn it off and open up Instagram, hoping that the brightness of the screen will tell my brain that it’s daytime and I should probably get ready to go to my first lecture. 

I’ll scroll for a few minutes, then reply to any messages I got during the night. And once I’ve mustered up the energy, I’ll take my scrolling downstairs, while I wait for the kettle to boil. I hate to admit that I’m totally addicted to my phone. 

I constantly check for notifications, use it to pass the time while I’m on the train to college and for background noise if I’m eating alone. It’s an extension of my arm.

As I’m writing this, I’m thinking of John Lennon singing ‘Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans’. But the thing is, I’m not really making other plans. Right now, life is what happens when I’m busy scrolling through Instagram. What a pathetic song lyric that would be. 

But I think the same could be said for a lot of people. And I’m getting particularly fed up with my relationship with technology. I see how it takes from my sleep, distracts me from college work, and causes me to be less engaged when I’m with my friends and family.

We talk about why young people are lonelier than ever before. But as I’m writing this column in a student zone in Trinity, I can see that the 15 or so other people in this room are largely sitting silently on their phones, waiting for their next class. 

There’s no meaningful socialising, even though we’re all students, of a similar age, and probably doing similar subjects. That’s the crux of all this. 

Social media is certainly not bridging any gap of loneliness in the room I’m in now. I’m not saying this to unveil some hidden undercurrent of social isolation among young people. This is something known to us all. But for some reason, even though the answer seems glaringly obvious, very few people are willing to sacrifice their technology.

That brings me to what I’m really writing about today. This column will be in print on Friday, April 11. From tomorrow, the 12th, I will be challenging myself to break up with technology for two weeks. 

That means, I will turn my phone off until April 26. I’m going to get a glimpse of what life was like in my parents’ day. If I’m bored on my commute, I’ll have to read a book or look out the window. 

I’ll have to just remember the train timetable and make sure I show up with enough time to get to class. If the train is delayed — which, knowing Irish Rail, is almost certain — I will just have to wait and see when it turns up or hope that they make an intercom announcement with updates. I’m going cold turkey.

However, T&Cs will apply. I would prefer if this challenge didn’t lead to me failing my third year of college. So, I will still have access to my laptop and email, but only for the purposes of this job and submitting college assignments.

I’m already anticipating some obstacles. For instance, going out in the evening without a phone will feel strange. And, as a woman, I’ll have to be more cautious than usual when I’m out and about. I’ll have to stick with friends if I’m out at night. 

I’ll also have to get used to using a physical bank card in the shop, not just tapping my phone. But I’m also expecting to have more time for doing things that I enjoy, like reading and playing the piano. I might find I’ve more headspace for my college study. And as an unrelenting insomniac, I’m hoping I feel a little more rested at the end of these two weeks.

I don’t think I’ll find the shift easy, but sometimes a challenge like this can be a good thing, to expand my idea of things I’m capable of.

I’m looking forward to seeing how I get on. I’ll be writing about my experience with the challenge in two weeks. Until then, I’ll have to get to grips with an old-fashioned alarm clock. And lock away my phone.

Wish me luck!