New column “The Feeling of the Week”. This time: cell phone regret

A few days ago I was looking for my cell phone late at night. I know that at this time you should stop looking at screens and instead sleep or sleep with your neighbor or read something on paper. But I really wanted the cell phone, where was it? Then I saw something glowing under the Star Wars bed linen in the children’s room; it was shortly before midnight. The device was in cahoots with my twelve-year-old, and they both had a lot of fun. Me: Are you totally crazy now, where did you get the code, we’ll talk tomorrow. Smartphone confiscation. Sleep now!

Then later, in bed, something grabbed me and shook me violently – it was cell phone remorse. My feeling of the week. You know how it is: you want to take a quick look on LinkedIn to see what the other posers are posting; quickly read the top news, oh, an urgent breaking news story, click-click, then swipe through Instagram a bit for edification – and hours have passed and the moments were wasted when you could have done something useful. Cleaning the rusting bathtub drain, for example. Or call my friend Ulrich, who moved into the hospice with cancer all over his body. Or discussing the pros and cons of Mars expeditions with the aforementioned twelve-year-old, his favorite topic at the moment.

Regret is the dissatisfaction and shame about something you did or didn’t do. In the case of cell phone regret, unfortunately both apply. What kind of role model am I?! Answer: someone who does unimportant things on their cell phone and omits important things in life.

I recently went to a clinic in Berchtesgaden for a report where children with cell phone addiction are undergoing a new therapy. Lea’s father (twelve years old, twelve hours of screen time per day) said the unforgettable sentence: “If I could travel back in time to Lea’s early childhood, I would no longer give her any devices at all. I would be tough.” Tough for love, tough for regret. Read the report here.

Now cell phone remorse is not cell phone addiction. To keep it that way, firstly, I made all the screens in the house childproof. You can find out how to do this here.

Secondly, it is a healing shock to check your own media behavior. Because of role models and stuff like that. Daniel Illy is a good advisor for this; he is a psychiatrist and one of the leading experts in the field.

And thirdly, I came across something that will almost certainly help against cell phone regret: book joy. My colleagues from the culture department have just produced a special edition called “The Books of Our Lives”. It’s available in print (to be precise: in bed late at night). And here.

The good thing about regret is that it motivates us to make better decisions. In my case that means: I have a meeting with my friend Ulrich on Thursday (“Don’t bring cake, I overeaten it, just something salty. I’m looking forward to it”). The debate with my son about Mars expeditions is heated (“I’ll go there, Mom, but it’ll be expensive”). The only thing that can wait is the rusting bathtub drain.

Have a nice weekend! Yours, Helen Bömelburg

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