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I’m not sure if you’ve noticed or not, but with all the subtlety of using a hammer to  drive a toothpick through paper, I’ve railed against New Year’s resolutions in the past.

I’ve found them to be arbitrary at best as to when we follow through with them or not and at worst largely ignored for the sake of a good laugh.

“Haha, I’m going to give up peanuts because I’m just a little ‘nutty!’ Haha, get it, Nutty!”

Yes, truly hilarious, now please do us all a kindness and go jump in the river.

And yet, dear reader, I should probably use these early ramblings to alert you that I, in fact, have chosen to set my own New Year’s resolution this year, despite my desire not to because of those feelings I’ve already related.

It’s not an overly difficult resolution. I mean, I’m going to try and eat better of course, but I was already trying to do that. We’ll see how that goes. I expect it to be arbitrary as well.

Either way, this new resolution is tied into something I started doing last year and that was largely started because of an app on my phone.

When I wake up each Sunday morning, I do so to two things. First, of course, are the cats whining at the intolerable hour of 5 a.m. that they are hungry and the second is the app on my phone telling me how much time I’ve spent on my phone.

At first, I took this to be something of a mocking app that sought to show me that I did indeed spend two more hours on my phone than the week previous. Not one to be insulted by a piece of technology, I vowed with the maturity of an eight-year-old who was double-dog dared to do better the next week, often with a defiant if not internalized, “oh yeah! I’ll show you!”

So, I vowed at the time to shave time off my phone time, which also came with the vow to not visit social media as much.

I’ve always enjoyed social media going back to the days of Myspace, but I think we can all agree lately it’s ranged from insulting to hateful to mundane — and that’s all within a 15-minute scroll.

On Facebook, I’ve tried looking at pages regarding Lord of the Rings, tigers, the Vikings — pages that I use as pallet cleansers. Sadly, to get to those pages I have to see political discourse railing against one side or the other, anger-inspired declarations of “I’m not going to stand for this,” and a general and overall irksome attitude of “I’m right, you’re wrong,” etc, etc, etc.

However, in this endeavor to try and mitigate what I was using my phone for, I found I was making progress regarding my time on the phone. At first it was mere minutes and then a couple hours here and there.

This past Sunday, I was on my phone two hours less than the week before. That week was down five hours from the previous week.

Granted, spread over the week this time probably isn’t that much, but it denotes progress and often that is what resolutions are driven by. Progress of any discernible type that keeps us rolling towards a desired outcome.

I had gone from a petulant declaration to a much happier state of mind. I enjoy catching up with friends and relatives; seeing moments in time that create memories past the moment they happen, but I haven’t missed everything that comes with social media.

Instead, I’ve reinvested this time into even more reading, which serves to take my mind away from a modern day that comes with so much baggage. Combining physical books with audio books just this last half of the year, I’ve easily doubled my output in terms of what I’m reading and it’s been fabulous. Even when I’m on YouTube, I’m watching videos in a sub-set of content called BookTube where avid readers share what they are reading and what they are recommending.

I’m doing more off-screen things at home and relishing the idea that I can go somewhere and not be distracted by what may or may not be happening on my phone.

And it’s becoming easier, which continues to drive this idea that life can once again be lived without having to continue glancing at one’s phone.

Heck, I might even try climbing a tree again if Mayo Ambulance will agree to stage for me.

Go ahead, put it down for an hour and don’t even glance at it. Resolve to do so the next day, maybe for a little bit longer.

In fact, I double-dog dare you because I guarantee your life will be better when you expand your vision past a small portable screen.