Shadowing Practice: My phone was making me a loser. So I quit it. - Learn English Speaking with Video

What happens when a person who's chronically online quits their phone for 24 hours?

Hey, that's me.

I'm chronically online.

And as much fun as that sounds, lately I've been noticing that I've been feeling like I'm losing my brain.

I catch myself comparing my life to strangers online almost constantly.

I feel like I'm not able to focus or even be bored for more than three minutes at a time.

And my attention span?

Cooked.

So I decided to run a little experiment.

I'm spending the next 24 hours completely off my phone to see

if I can start to cure my brain rot in as little as a day.

But if I'm gonna be at all successful in this challenge, then it needs to start the night before.

That's right.

We got an alarm clock.

One of the cardinal rules of habit change is to make that habit easier or harder to do.

And one of the easiest ways you can do this is to just set up your environment

so that it sets you up for success

Because I don't know about you I just don't have the

willpower to only hit snooze on this phone first thing in the morning No, no, no my mornings for the past.

I don't even know how long have looked just like this alarm goes off

and before you know it I have checked emails.

I have checked YouTube comments

and then you know I'm checking tick-tock to see what my favorite foster cat is up to

So before i've even had a chance to get out of bed and start my day I am feeling overwhelmed,

wondering why I don't have my dream body yet and why I haven't started my million dollar business before 8am.

So tonight, no phone in the bedroom.

Let's see how it goes.

Good night.

That alarm was jarring to say the least.

And I did want to grab for my phone, but it's not here so it's good the detox begins okay

it's raining

right now and i'm just having my coffee this morning before i head to the gym

and normally i wouldn't even give myself time to be able to do this

because my alarm would go off of my phone, I'd grab it and then immediately start scrolling

and it like I would end up wasting like 15-20 minutes just laying in bed

and then end up having to rush for the rest of my morning.

So I almost never sit down and have my coffee.

I always take it to go.

But it is interesting because I feel like my body is waiting for something to react to, whether it be getting into like the scrolling rabbit hole, checking emails, checking notifications.

I feel like I want to do something.

So I'm actually kind of antsy.

Yeah, I'm not used to it.

Now since we're here, let's talk about the rules for the day.

Rule number one, absolutely no social media use whatsoever.

No Instagram, no TikTok, and no YouTube.

This is gonna be my biggest challenge of the day because I have an addiction, sir!

And rule number two is that I can only use my phone today for actual calls or text messages.

And the only texts I'm expecting today are from my family group chat.

everything else must be on desktop

and as the old saying goes fail to plan plan to fail

so I've also made myself a bit of a to-do list for the day it's well known

that if you start your day doing something just a little bit difficult

and delay those instant gratification dopamine hits then you're gonna set

yourself up for a day of better focus better mood

and less reactivity and that's what I'm banking on

so I'm gonna start by doing something hard

which is going to the gym okay well

that was a good start I really want to go check my phone

and what I usually like to do after my workouts is to go get myself a coffee

and that's when I kind of do a silly little scroll

and check my emails and stuff but we're not going to do

that today we're just going to enjoy the coffee in silence.

Yeah it was good I needed to do that because I felt really exposed,

because I had no work to do I had no laptop

I had no book I had no journal I had nothing to write down with me

so literally just had to sit there

and the amount of times I wanted to actually reach for my phone just

because I felt a little bit uncomfortable not having something to do

or something to distract me

or something to make me feel like I don't know almost

like less alone it was weird a little more uncomfortable than I thought.

By this point I was actually feeling pretty good.

It was really nice not starting the day comparing myself to somebody else.

But then came my next challenge, having my meal in silence.

Because see, I almost never eat my meals like this.

In fact, this is my favorite time to have another silly little scroll.

I want to reach for my phone so bad right now.

And I could almost feel this in my gut.

I wasn't just hungry, I really wanted that instant hit of dopamine.

I don't know what to do with myself.

Then after getting ready, this is where the hard part begins because I needed to do some work.

And since I don't really trust myself not to grab from my phone, I decided to bring in the big muscle to make sure I keep myself on track

because rule number two of habit change, don't rely on willpower.

So I bought this thing.

Yeah, I bought a brick.

100% not sponsored.

I bought it with my own money and it's because I don't trust myself.

And I have tried it all.

I've gone grayscale on my phone.

I've tried the reminder apps and I always ignore them.

Remember that rule of habit change?

Make the habit you want to break harder to do.

And this thing is about as physical a barrier as it gets.

So I'm going to try bricking my phone for a couple hours and see how much productive work I can get done.

So we're locked out until tomorrow, folks.

But one thing I'm really happy about is I've been up for six hours and I haven't checked a single email yet.

Which to me is actually quite refreshing because it's just a reminder that one, nothing is truly that urgent.

And two, I don't need to react to anything.

So not reacting to things like comments or my inbox first thing in the morning has actually been quite nice.

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I feel like my brain is clear, is happy, ready to get into things.

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So I was listening to a podcast a couple of days before I decided to do the challenge, and it inspired me to keep an intrusive thoughts journal.

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People who tend to app switch when they scroll or people who have a lot of tabs open when they're working,

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they tend to switch every 45 seconds or something like that.

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So it's really, really hard to get into a flow state and to stay focused.

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But the really sort of interesting and kind of scary thing about that was when they took those distractions away, people started to interrupt themselves with their own thoughts.

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Basically, it means that you're so used to those distractions that when you don't have them anymore, you start to do it yourself.

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But you got to put that energy somewhere.

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So instead of putting it towards your phone, just write down the thought that interrupted you.

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I might not share my intrusive thoughts with you, but I'm going to keep tabs on them today to see how many times I distract myself.

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I have a total of eight intrusive thoughts that I wrote down.

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I don't know if that's good or bad.

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And some of my favorites are, when am I going to get this done?

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My legs hurt.

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Is it cheating if I watch Lord of the Rings tonight?

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Let me know if it counts in the comments.

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I'm bored.

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You forgot to take your creatine.

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I think it's time for a break.

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But the main thing I noticed was anytime that I didn't have actual work to do, I was bored.

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But you know what?

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That's actually a good thing because it is the perfect time to start exploring things

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that you're interested in that you always feel like you never really had time for because of social media, which is where I'd like to thank the sponsor of today's video, Skillshare.

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Because if you're chronically online like me, one of the best things you can do is just to spend

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that time that you would otherwise be scrolling learning a new skill.

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And Skillshare is literally perfect for this.

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They have thousands of classes taught by actual experts in their industry on things like photography, cinematography, and even how to take care of your plants.

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And I hope you're liking this angle and film composition because I was inspired to do it after taking Eddie Liang's course, Mastering composition, creating visually stunning shots on Skillshare.

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He dives deep into things like framing, angles, and how to play with things like color and light to get a really interesting shot.

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For me, the funnest part about making YouTube videos is about playing around with composition and different angles like this.

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So definitely check out Eddie's class.

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So if you are ready to finally fight against brain rot like me, then definitely try out Skillshare.

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The first 500 people to click the link in the description

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or scan the QR code right here will get a one month free trial to Skillshare.

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I should probably go do something.

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Thanks, Skillshare.

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One thing about me is I'm not really about eating at the table.

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I gotta have my feet up when I'm eating, I don't know what to say.

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One thing I'm kind of getting the urge for is to talk to somebody, I guess.

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Like in the sense that when I work from home, I can go all day without talking to anyone and doing things like responding to DMs,

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responding to comments, checking my text messages, even though that's allowed today, I haven't gotten any texts, but I don't want to pick up my phone to send any really either.

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I just kind of came to this realization that I kind of use social media to not only distract myself, but also to feel, I guess, a little less lonely, but it's the first time all day

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that I'm craving to check it for reasons other than to cure boredom or out of habit.

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And just as I was feeling a little bit confident about being off my phone, autopilot kicked in.

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Okay, first fail of the day.

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Didn't even realize I was doing it.

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I wanted to be on the couch and I wanted my phone in my hand.

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All I did was check my email and I replied to a WhatsApp message that I got,

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but I did say that I wanted to keep my email and my messaging all on my laptop or desktop today. So

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my heart is like racing oh my god it's like i

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blacked out for a second honestly it's like i didn't even think uh and

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that felt like a social media fix i don't know i

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feel like i wanted like to do this you know tappy

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tappy tappy i'm feeling like my focus is a little bit

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hazy right now so i think i just need some fresh air

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and i am gonna bring my phone with me

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but this like only for safety reasons honestly like i don't

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plan on using it i don't plan on listening to anything

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i'm just going to get some fresh air all right let's go

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so this walk really did do the trick normally i'd have music a book

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or a podcast on to distract me

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but just a quick 10 minute walk around the block with

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zero distractions really did clear my brain i could almost feel my brain fog lifting in real time

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and i easily got back to doing a few more hours of really good focused work

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And because the evening was wearing on by this point, I did really feel like my willpower is wearing out too.

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I will say I did grab from my phone a few times here, forgetting that all of my social media apps were blocked.

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But every time I did pick it up, I was quickly reminded that there was nothing really to see, so I found myself putting it down just as fast.

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Until I found myself a loophole.

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And like right now I'm feeling like just to have something to do, I'm so tempted to just like scroll through my old photos

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just for like something to watch which is yikes

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which they say is not actually a bad thing to do

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they say it's a good thing for your memory it's a

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good exercise to look back at old photos to jog your memory

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and be like oh yeah i remember that day it was

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so much fun so there is some utility to

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that it's not completely passive but i'm just doing it

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because i can't look at social media right now

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which is uh very embarrassing this was pretty wild i feel

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like my body was just craving for my thumb to do a swiping motion at this point.

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Trying a new recipe because that's fun for our brains.

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We don't always need scrolling for fun things.

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And even though I tried to stay busy by making dinner, I found as the evening wore on, I was feeling more and more tempted to reach for my phone just to check.

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Okay, that's dinner.

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We've got, I think these are like honey paprika chicken thighs, some leftover potatoes.

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Peas are the new kale.

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High protein, high fiber.

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Eat your peas.

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I could really just feel this craving of curiosity building and building, and it was really starting to bug me as the evening wore on.

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Did have another flinch.

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I took a bite.

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I wanted to reach for my phone and scroll.

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Something to do.

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I'm obviously not going to be able to disconnect from my phone from everything.

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A lot of my work is on there, but I think at least for meals, this is a habit that I'm really going to be continuing to build.

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Like, no phone during meals.

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I think that is a very easy and healthy habit to stick to, so.

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I think, you know, part of this is too is that I think maybe I'm just really bad at setting boundaries.

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So I just checked my email, did a little bit more work.

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So I decided to check the next item off my to-do list, which was read 10 pages of a book.

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I borrowed this book and yeah, it comes highly recommended.

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And I always read nonfiction all the time and like a lot of self-help.

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And that's just not playful.

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It's not like a lot of fun for your brain.

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Sometimes I feel like it can actually make you feel worse.

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So I just want my brain to wander.

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I want to read a story.

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This is the only book that I read so far this year.

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And one thing I've been working on for a long time

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but have never really stuck to is to become a book book reader, like physical books like this.

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I like to consume audiobooks, which, you know, is on the go and multitasking and on my phone.

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So this is going to be a new habit that I'm building, but I'm looking forward to it and I've never actually tried it with fiction before.

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So I feel like I haven't actually read fiction since I was in high school, so it's time.

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Now this was something I really wish I did sooner.

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This book grabbed me from the first few sentences and I ended up reading until bedtime without even realizing it.

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You don't understand, I haven't read fiction in years, but I think this was a slow and good dopamine fix that I really needed.

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And you know, it was kind of nice to feel like I didn't waste my evening on my phone for once.

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We did it!

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Okay, it's about 9 p.m and you know what?

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I'm ready.

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I'm ready for bed.

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I'm actually tired.

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I don't feel like staying up late into the night revenge scrolling.

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And my goal today was to read 10 pages of a book.

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I have read 40 pages and I'm gonna read for probably another Half an hour or until I get sleepy.

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This was an eye-opening day I learned that

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when I am way more dependent

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and addicted to my phone than I ever thought Like I thought I had decent boundaries around it

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or I thought my use around it was at the very least Justified

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because I am a content creator and I'm on my phone a lot

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But I waste an incredible amount of time consuming rather than creating on those apps Is this something

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that I'm gonna do every day?

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If I'm being realistic, no.

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But I do think there is a lot of value in having at least one phone-free no-scroll day a week.

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One thing that I did today that I really really liked was time blocking my email checking.

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Usually I check my emails as they come in all day long throughout the day so it's very distracting.

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But today I delayed checking them until a certain time

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and I only checked them at a certain window a a couple of times today

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and I think I'm gonna do the same thing with my social media use.

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I think it's fine to pop in for a few minutes to check in on my foster kitties

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and to engage with the people that I like to follow But once I've had a little scroll, I have to set a boundary and just be out.

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So that's something that I'm definitely gonna work on.

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So is my brain rot cured?

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No, not yet, but we're moving in the right direction

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And I feel like today was a really positive first step

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So let me know if you take phone-free days and what you do during them

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And if you want to know even more habits

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that will rewire your brain and make doing hard things as easy as scrolling TikTok, then check out this video next.

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Thanks so much for watching and I'll see you next week.

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Good night.

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Bye.

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And can you please leave me some really good fiction books in the comments down below

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because I'm gonna be hitting up the library after I finish this one.

What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.

Shadowing Practice: My phone was making me a loser. So I quit it. - Learn English Speaking with Video

About This Lesson

Key Vocabulary & Phrases

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What is the Shadowing Technique?