6 Cute Phone Docks to Help Limit *Your* Screentime (Not Just Your Kids’!)
For all my diligent monitoring of my son’s screentime, I’m terrible at limiting my own. Sometimes, in the middle of a conversation, I don’t even realize that I’ve opened up Instagram, as if my thumbs did it of their own accord. Those thumbs are also very good at circumventing all my app limits. Clearly, if I want to be present with my family and avoid being a total “do as I say, not as I do” kind of parent, I need a better tactic.
Many people have started to create physical barriers to limit their scrolling habits. Some use products like the Brick, which lets you block certain apps until you physically tap your phone to the device, which you’ve hopefully put in a different room. There are also various lock boxes set to timers, making it nearly impossible for you to break your own rules. I’m more intrigued by a less hardcore method I’ve been seeing on social media: “parking” or hanging up the phone — as in, literally putting it in a dock or on a shelf hanging on the wall.
Why Should You Park Your Phone?
There’s a number of reasons I like this idea better than the alternatives. First, it allows you to use the phone to answer calls and texts freely. Many even call this the new “landline.” If the purpose of a phone break is to be with my family, I still want to be able to talk to my parents, siblings, and cousins. Second, it makes a clear, visual point to my son: I am putting this down. It is no longer attached to me. We don’t need the phone to breathe.
It’s heartening to read how Teresa Mettela, a contributor to Cubby’s sister site Apartment Therapy, felt like hanging up her phone this way enabled her to turn off the “reflex” to check her phone and become more thoughtful about it.
“It sounds simple, but the shift in energy that comes from not having our phones constantly accessible has been PROFOUND!” California-based interior designer Ryan Shand wrote in an Instagram post about what happened when she started parking her phone in a wall-mounted bowl. (Her post also shows how gorgeous a phone dock can be.)
Phone Docks to Try
All this to say, I’m ready to give this technique a shot. I’m shopping around for something easy to mount, easy to use, and inexpensive enough that I can eventually buy it for my husband’s and son’s phones, too. I also want it to be aesthetically pleasing. Here are a few options I’ve found that I’m eyeing for the park-your-phone method.
