TECH BOSS KICKS PHONE HABIT
A FORMER Google manager is fighting to curb addiction to mobile phones after finding herself glued to social media weeks after giving birth.
Georgie Powell, 33, who led the YouTube team in Australia and worked for the web giant for several years, realised she was hooked to her phone after having her daughter Amelie and spending her time scrolling through pictures online rather than appreciating time with her newborn.
Mrs Powell, from Guildford, Surrey, was in charge of boosting Google-owned YouTube’s reach in Australia and New Zealand – but only later realised the impact technology could be having on herself and others.
She said: ‘My real wake-up moment was when I went on maternity leave for my first child and I was breastfeeding her, looking at photos on my phone, that was back in 2016…I just thought: “This is actually madness, these moments are not going to last for long and I am literally missing them.”’
She felt ‘isolated’ and ‘lonely’ when looking at friends’ social media pages, believing their experiences of parenthood were more plain sailing than her own. ‘Other people who perhaps have children at the same time, you see them out sipping a latte and you are kind of at home crying because you’ve had two hours sleep,’ she said.
The mother of two started limiting her phone use and banning herself from having her mobile in her bedroom, or using it when she woke up to feed her baby at night.
She said: ‘I just felt a lot more in control. Rediscovering my own habits also made me much more aware of what was happening…I was becoming increasingly frustrated that I could not have conversations with others without them looking at their phone.
‘If I was on the phone in front of my kids, how could I possibly stop them from using theirs all the time?’
Determined to use technology for good rather than rake in clicks, Mrs Powell set up the Space: Find Your Phone Life Balance app, which helps people realise why they are fixated on their phone and how they can kick the habit.