What is Screen Time Lifeline?
Photo by Laura Short
Welcome to Screen Time Lifeline: a supportive community designed to help you beat screen addiction, right-size your relationship with technology, and reclaim your humanity.
Screen Time Lifeline is deeply grounded in principles of social justice. More than just a wellness endeavor, our aim is to identify and confront the ways the tech industry reinforces oppressive dynamics and colonizes our relationships, our world views, our independent thinking, our free will and our minds, all for profit.
About Screen Time Lifeline
The one thing we all have in common is that we’re gonna die one day.
Most of us feel on some level like we’re wasting our precious time in this life on things that don’t matter instead of things that do.
Having spent 15 years as a therapist, I define things that matter as those that give our lives meaning—the things that people at the end of their life report wishing they had done more of, such as nurturing their relationships, exploring their talents, learning a craft, reading, traveling, trying new things…the list goes on.
So, where is our valuable time and energy going instead of these important and meaningful things?
These days, our phones.
The psychological community has not officially named screen fixation an actual addiction, partly because it’s a relatively new phenomenon.
But, let me ask you this: If I told you to go a couple hours without checking your phone, how do you feel? How about a day? How about a month? How about a year? What sensations do you notice in your body when you hear these questions? Panic? Clinching? Resistance? If you felt nothing, congratulations! You’re in the minority.
Our phones are so integrated with how we live, it’s hard for many of us to imagine life without them, even those of us who only started using smartphones in adulthood. It’s hard to remember what life was like before we walked around with personal computers.
The truth is that even though these machines provide a lot of useful tools, convenience, and sometimes even safety, they are in equal or greater measure causing us suffering.
This suffering can look like
The loss of or strain on a relationship because we’re so preoccupied with our screen
The loss of or strain on work and productivity because we’re not getting enough sleep and/or we’re distracted throughout the day
Physical health issues because of the effect of blue light on our sleep and hormones
Mental and emotional health issues because of isolation-induced loneliness and social anxiety
Overwhelm from having a barrage of digital information coming at us on a near constant basis
Depression and anxiety from falling into the unattainable social media comparison trap
The feeling of being out of control and not in charge of our own destiny because of the time suck that is our scrolling habit
Preoccupation with our screens is a real health hazard that causes us deep suffering and yet we continue to reach for our phone like it’s a part of our body.
For this reason, I call it screen addiction. It’s not a medical diagnosis (yet) but it’s good shorthand for now. Powerful entities are working tirelessly to keep us hooked to our screens. Because of this, in some ways, we are powerless and we do need help.
So, what do we do about it?
Beat ourselves into a shame pulp? Throw our phones into the nearest river?
Fortunately, no. Neither of those things.
Screen Time Lifeline is a shame-free community designed to help you beat screen addiction, right-size your relationship with technology, and reclaim your humanity.
Why shame-free?
Because shame is an ineffective tactic in addressing addiction and emotional health.
Because it’s not your fault. You hear all of the time that you “should” spend less time on your phone. Meanwhile, powerful corporate interests are working tirelessly to keep you addicted to your screens.
It’s crucial that we stop living in shame about our tech fixations and putting so much onus on individuals to change their behavior. This is not about willpower. It’s about power in general.
Why community?
In order to spend less time on our phones, we need to reclaim our lives in ways that greatly transcend quick fixes, tips and hacks. This is a personal growth project that is most powerful when held in community. Change happens in community. Change happens with connection. Change happens with support.
What do you mean right-size?
Demonizing our phones won’t change the fact that we are in some ways dependent on them. This is about balance, choice, and empowerment.
What do you mean “reclaim my humanity”?
I mean freeing up whatever time and energy is being sucked away by scrolling and putting it back into your deepest desires and that which makes your life meaningful.
Photo by Stevie Rotella
Hi! I’m Christina
Ever since I was a little girl I’ve passionate about supporting others to reach their full potential. Starting with my stuffed animals!
So, it makes sense that when it came time to decide what to do with my life I started with a career as community organizer. Later, I became a psychotherapist, which is the other side of the same coin: macro social change / micro social change, external work / internal work.
People need to to feel good about themselves to be able to have an impact on the world.
I had been a therapist for a while before Facebook, Instagram or even smartphones were a thing, and before we relied on text messaging as our primary form of communication. I’ve noticed how useful all this technology is, how it can create connection, empowerment, and access to resources.
I have also noticed the ways in which it creates suffering.
Back in 2017, I had been sitting with this problem of hyperconnectivity, realizing that I had been observing it in my clients but not reflecting on my own relationship with technology.
I, too, was getting lost in the rabbit hole, over-scrolling and using my overuse of technology as a way to enable workaholism and bypass my emotional reality.
So, I took myself on a week-long screen-free vacation — no phone, no laptop, no tablet.
The first few days of it really sucked. They were much harder than I thought they would be. I felt anxious, I felt agitated, I felt disconnected, I didn’t know what to do with myself.
Then, on day three, I just dropped in. I dropped into my body, I dropped into my values and asked myself: what is meaningful to me? What are my deepest desires? I had space to really think about how to center myself and my relationships. I had time for contemplation and rest.
I truly had a profound, life-changing experience.
When I returned to “reality”, I came equipped with strategies to have more balance with technology that I’ve been able to maintain to this day. I believe it’s because I took the space to experience something different than being chained to my phone and laptop 24/7.
I came back from my digital fast and immediately thought, “I want to recreate this experience for everybody!”
Knowing nothing about marketing and how much work it is to pull it off, I booked a venue and decided I was going to hold a retreat.
Once the charming alpine retreat center was booked, I immediately proceeded freak out. What have I done?! What if no one comes and I just wasted all this money and burned a bridge with this retreat venue?
Much to my delight and relief, people did show up, and it was wonderful. It was amazing to see participants connecting with each other, tapping into their true natures, their values and truths.
When it was all over, I honestly felt high. After that, I was hooked.
The rest is history.
Retreats aren’t accessible for everyone, and I wanted to make my work available to as many people as possible.
So, I decided to expand the concept to build a community where people can have regular tech-life balance discussions, enjoy group support, and attend (for now, online) workshops, and, yes, in-person retreats again one day.
There are many ways to enter this work.
It’s important that you’re able to start the journey with baby steps. So, a retreat might be really overwhelming. But a one-hour workshop might be a great entry point.
If you have any questions or ideas on how we might collaborate please do not hesitate to contact me.
Please check out my events page for upcoming retreats and workshops. The easiest way to stay updated on new events is to join my email list below!