Searching For Apps Is Definitely The Wave For Productive Phone Use

I love the sensation of swiping to the appropriate place and selecting an app from the sea of apps from pure muscle memory.

There is this passive awareness where as long as everything is as expected, the entire process is done on autopilot. After years and years of Android, stuff just transferred over and remained in the same place. I knew where everything was. I barely used the search bar for anything other than settings or files.

Seriously, smartphones making the settings accessible from search is one of the best improvements ever made. 

That being said, going from Android to IOS was a culture shock.

When it transferred stuff from one phone to the next, it made a giant mess of apps in a random order.

After staring at my screen in failure, time and time again I did something new, I started searching. 

Browsing for familiar icons is not fun when you don’t know where it is

For like 3 days I did not see the Messenger app icon anywhere on my screen.

There were like 6 pages of app icons, different colours and shapes. I know what they all are but browsing through them to find the particular app I want sucks. I swear it’s like they all blur together and after minutes start passing by I start feeling dumb.

Now inevitably I’ll get everything organized and ready to go so I can go back to browsing but for now it’s still a mess and I got my regular phone needs.

The truth is, browsing for apps showed me how many were installed I never used. 

Lately I’m motivated to use my phone less and find better focus, especially as IOS basically tells you about your phone usage in a more prominent way than Android.

It reminds me of this article I read once upon a time that I couldn’t find just now about less addictive phone habits.

Searching for apps means you are looking for only what you need in that moment

Our phones usually have a few time wasters that when we see them, we indulge.

This may be a quick scroll through TikTok or it may be a video game that you enjoy. Seeing the icon for that app will trigger something in you that wants to get that dopamine you are craving. But what happens if you don’t see the icon anymore?

Let’s say you just cleared all the app icons from your phone’s homescreen. There is still that list with all the apps you can browse should you ever need to, but if there were no icons in your face, all you can do is search. When you are searching, your actions have more intention.

You need to think about the app you want to use, then you get brought right to it. 

When you are finished using it, you can go about your life not being constantly reminded of the temptations that exist within our expensive devices. 

Now maybe you have self control, but from what I see online, we’re very addicted to our phones.

Social Media used to be my job but it feels more and more like a waste of time

Even while writing this article, I took a break to go rant at mid 50’s people in my neighbourhood in a Facebook Group.

I love the rush of arguing online and this all feels so consequenceless. At the most, a couple of Karen-like figures in my mind judge me as a morally insensitive twat. Based on their worldview, I think they are correct. I am whatever they say I am. I still think their world views suck.

Now if I wasn’t on Facebook, wasting 15 minutes on that, I would have finished this article sooner. I have other chores to deal with and ultimately I want to play Cyberpunk 2077 when the day is done. If I dilly dally with distraction, I may end up not having time for CP2077 later on because I’ll still be doing chores.

That happens too often when I’m not focused.

Anyway I want to be better and maybe the search only method is the right path forward.

Live Long and Prosper Everyone