I have new art for you, but FIRST, this is time sensitive:
We’d planned this for Labor Day weekend, but since we’re the smallest business you know and life happened, we’re now doing a Labor Day and the Day After sale 🤠
Use code PLENTY and get a free sticker with each print you buy. Choose the print(s) and sticker(s) you want, put them both/all in your cart, pop in the code, and the stickers will be free!
The sale runs today and tomorrow (Sept 2-3, 2024).
These days are the LAST CHANCE for stickers, pins and notebooks. On Wednesday, they’re gone and won’t be back until ❄️winter❄️.
Use code PLENTY and get a free sticker with each print
Today & tomorrow are the last days for stickers+
And now! Time for art:
I made this piece this last week. Should we title it “brain rot”? I haven’t decided yet, but as a self-portrait it makes me a bit worried. Scrolling is an ever-pressing issue for me. My life is in my phone — so much art, favorite friends like you — but sometimes I look at screens so long my teeth start to hurt, and then I ignore my teeth and keep looking longer.
Is this a behavior issue that calls for managing screentime with rules for myself and locking apps? On the surface it seems like a bad habit, or that I’ve fallen victim to the manipulative design of the algorithms (intermittent reward interspersed with rage-baiting and fear-mongering — what one commenter called “emotional roulette”).
But so far, I’ve never fixed a “bad habit” by force of will, at least not in a long term, grounded way. There always turns out to be an unmet need driving it, and once it’s cared for, it releases the bind.
One phone-related example: I stay up half the night scrolling through videos when I feel that it’s the only time when there’s nothing I should be doing. I don’t have to be available to anyone, and no one is noticing me either: I’m finally alone, soaking up precious autonomy.
All-nighters between me and my phone are a part of me offering some love to those unmet needs for space, privacy, quiet, release from responsibility, and play, after the rest of me has spent all day denying them.
So what am I really doing when I scroll? Am I bypassing the loneliness, boredom, and pain that comes up in my quiet mind? Am I giving myself a breather from having to pay attention to other things that take so much effort? Am I taking a break from being in a body with all its sensations? Am I signaling to other people my need to for space? Am I trying to be closer to people I love? Am I softening my anxiety by taking in “small and easy stories”1?
Do you know what all you are doing when you scroll? Do you too feel it being both a vice and a kind of tenderness?
I would seriously love to hear — if you think about this too, please leave a comment and let me know how you are experiencing this.
- brit
ps. I will say, one thing that does help to break the phone’s spell and spur me on to meet these needs in other ways is to put my phone on black and white.2 It really drops the pzazz.
🍂 NEWS
LAST DAY for Stickers is tomorrow! (Tue, Sept 2)
Same goes for other small art, like notebooks and pins. SHOP STICKERS
Labor Day (and the day after Labor Day) sale:
Use code PLENTY and get a free sticker with each print. Choose the print(s) and sticker(s) you want, put them both/all in your cart, pop in the code, and the stickers will be free!
When: Mon & Tue, Sept 2-3. That’s now!
SHOP ART. Use code PLENTY for a free sticker with each print. Ends Sept 2, 2024.
Mary Oliver, “Rhapsody,” Leaf and the Cloud https://inwardboundpoetry.blogspot.com/2013/03/925-rhapsody-part-7-mary-oliver.html
On my iPhone, this setting is under Accessibility settings (General settings > Accessibility > Display & Text Size > Color Filters > Turn on. For me Grayscale is automatically selected, but there are several options. You can then make it easy to to turn on and off by going to Accessibility Shortcut on the main Accessibility page and selecting “Color Filters” — now it will be on your control center. If this is confusing just google it, lots of tutorials out there!
in nedra tawwabs book "set boundaries, find peace" she suggested turning off cell phones just for a little bit at a time and it was such an interesting experience for me to realize how much anxiety i had around "being unavailable". i still tell my partner ahead of time if im turning my phone off but its been a good practice in realizing i can trust other people to manage their problems and a lot of my phone use is because im subconsciously awaiting crisis and urgency