lent 2026

february 18th - april 4th
Lentphone revisited (only 3 apps: phone, messages and settings)



back to main lent page

Entry 1

Entry 2

Entry 3

Entry 4

Entry 5

Entry 6

whatever man, ill fix the box later. I cant figure it out. Im no html wizard.

apr 6: lenten conclusions

By the time I had neglected to update my second Monday entry (after, of course, putting off a different entry by two days, completely by accident) It would only be five days until lent, so I decided to save my final lenten diary entry for after lent had concluded. I hope you (Brandy and Liam, whom I suspect are the only two people reading this) can forgive me (surely you will).

My relationship to imessage continues to be a point of contention with regards to my activity in a digital space. The final couple of weeks were defined by my bathroom trips either reading over old messages from years ago (not in a self-depricating or comparison laden way, just like someone might read headlines on the New York Times) and taking advantage of the find friends map inside of imessage which I used to explore Canada from above. Did I do this in any meaningful way? No, not really, just sitting in amazement at a town like Tompkins, Saskachewan and how despite it being so isolated in comparsion to bigger towns, people nonetheless live there. Of course the most entertaining was my discovery of Monster's Ink in Medicine Hat Alberta, truly the most incredibly named tattoo parlor, to the effect that if I ever get a professionally done tattoo (something I frankly do not want, i'd prefer friends give me stick and pokes or use handheld personally owned tattoo guns) I will be traveling to Alberta so I can tell people where I got it. So yeah, Nobody would text me and I would explore Canada, which really emphasized how reliant I am on imessage, whether from friends or a girlfriend. Without it, even for my brief stints in the mornings at work or while shopping, I would feel that itch to pull out and try to respond to whomever I could. Every passing idea I had became a voice memo to send to a friend, when the idea required more thought to exorcise. Do I have any idea how to fix this moving forward? of course not! I will be taking something of a break from the asceticism of the entire endeavor, so I do not plan to discover life without imessage at my disposal this moment.

I spent something to the effect of six hours on my iphone yesterday, which certainly tracks in a post-lenten return to that digital space, tripling my average (which has slowly climbed upwards since week one) mostly on one of the many game apps that I have missed having at my disposal. I did not even download anything particularly addicitive (although I now have safari again, only for a short time though), it was just the logitsical efforts of reogrganizing my phone and my return to Pokemon Go and SOUNDMAP!!!!! brief aside for soundmap: I loved it in april and my girlfriend and I would go on soundmap walks and she would obsess over ween epics, and since I could not log in (every time I typed my apple info it would just freeze) I lost all my epics (bummer!) but I am excited to build back better. With the same ferocity as spring 2025? No, but I will enjoy listening to and collecting as many songs from the bands of Our Band Could Be Your Life as possible. Pokemon organization was entertaining, I wanted to walk but it was cold as booty and instead I played car pokemon while briefly spending some time in the wooded area in my hometown (which was partially flooded) and caught lots of mimikyu.

While all of that was somewhat gratifying after 46 days apart, I felt like an utter chungus by the end of it, realizing how bad all of it was for me. Well, pokemon and crossword apps aren't too terrible, but just the fact that this device is always here and clickable. I tried to heed the advice of Cal Newport; trying not to return to every terrible nook and cranny of the thing that kept me too engaged, only installing apps that I feel truly mattered in terms of convenience and brain expansion (bookfusion and crosswords, mainly). Instead of 2024's dillemia (oh, maybe im not just addicted to my phone, but I am also addicted to imessage), I knew exactly what my vices were going to be, and they returned in a similar way. It was not all bad but I did not learn anything new so much as reinforce the fact that I need to spend as much time putting up walls and circumnavigating the technology always in my pocket. I need to make sure that convenience takes second place to neccecity. I need to prepare for the inevitability of my phone (which took a beating in terms of battery life on Sunday): It will become a pokemon machine, always connected to portable charging, and I will purchase a flip phone. I spent a lot of time thinking about what I would be giving up for ambient autumn this year, I am excited for it to be more eccentric.

If you found this list by accident, I hope you enjoyed and had fun. If you are my friend, Thanks for the five minutes of attention. I looooooooove attention.

mar 23

OOPS! I totally forgot to write my blogpost on saturday. here is a late one for the nobody who is reading!

It would be improper to write the blog post for this week without refining and defining my use of the word "chungus", a negative term that holds similarity to the word "chud", a word I avoid because the incel ties are a little too potent for me. "Being a chungus" "chungus-ing out" and Brandy's coined "Woke up on the wrong side of chungus" all define this idea of not meeting goals and expectations set for oneself, and instead rotting in a variety of manners (typically an infinite scroll, or staring at ones phone, or flipping endlessly through tabs). At work, I find myself being a chungus properly, spending my time looking at pinterest or playing snake when I could be writing something more substantial, or reading a book, or something "useful". Despite the self-effacing nature, I find the verbage of chungus to be somewhat beneficial, it helps me recognize when I am not living up to the standards I set for myself, and it slowly veers me back to a path of something, anything more worthwhile than staring at my phone.

This all being said, I chungused out hard last week. On Thursday I made some progress in the goals of my own interest (I tried to fix an old imac and I got ableton to work before it came crashing down on sunday, so I will have to troubleshoot and figure that out this week.) Besides that I read very little (an ashbery collection) wrote very little (some free writing but nothing im proud of) and consumed too much (youtube is getting the better of me). Questions about my digital space after lentphone are often a point of reflection given there are only 13 days left, but really it boils down to deleting safari more than anything else. That being said, I really truly miss photos and pokemon go, I am glad I deleted photos though, I would be scrolling endlessly if I hadn't.

My screen time was identical, exactly 2 hours and eighteen minutes. Hopefully it goes down this week, last week I was in my chungus mindset, I crystallized more negative self talk that I have been attempting to curb. I have a flashdrive on the way as well as a kindle battery, hopefully tinker time continues. I can make it continue. And I can be kinder to myself about the chungus aspects, an inevitability for everyone.

mar 14

I am sitting at the large table across from the front desk, the lobby is currently empty and I have accounted for every check in today. That is, unless the single reservation I canceled gets sold, which it probably will be (edit: and it was!). The blue jackets are leading the flyers and I downloaded a ton of new age albums earlier.

Received some fan mail for my last entry (sent it to my friends and girlfriend) and received some light suggestions. For one, spell all of the words in the entry correctly, and two, I don’t need to look at something while I poop, I can stare blankly at the wall. Personally? I wholeheartedly disagree with this assessment. Bowel movements are not a distraction free zone like the shower. A little distraction often helps things move along.

Anyways, worse week for lentphone. 21% increase in lentphone usage. The culprit? Well, boredom, mainly. At times something more important (fixing my girlfriends ds that was crashing repeatedly) at times something less important (multiple walks I went on where I was still glued to my phone in the beautiful spring weather). We are reaching the part of lent where the lentphone feels like a novelty more than a useful tool. Sure, its monumentally better than whatever was going on before ( 2 hours and 15 minutes a day is still half (!!) of the close to six hours I had the week before lent) but I still feel like I could be doing better, better than tapping on it every five minutes to see nothing when I am in between rounds of Super Mario Strikers, or endless message searching when I am in between other more useful spots of my attention. Message searching does occasionally happen during the aformentioned toilet time, but the phone is in my hand! Am I going to play my ds while I poop?!

Ending each paragraph with an anecdote about poop, classy. I am trying to limit myself to 5 minutes of endless scroll per day on pinterest, youtube, and instagram per day. Pinterest was getting out of hand, just looking not making boards (which I am not great at, partially because I am a boy, partially because my feed is meant to be scrolled not saved). I also got yt-dlp installed mainly for the new age tape downloading but I may venture into the world of downloading youtube videos regularly. But yeah, feeling a little bit useless this lent, because I am not creating and I am not even reading. I am just looking, looking at youtube or the few messages I get or the headlines on espn and First Take. I think next week will be better with regards to lentphone (maybe I will implement more strict guidelines for my walks and phone usage) (This week was good otherwise, especially the nice weather).

mar 7

I was thinking critically about what to make of my post-pizza second half of shift, and I nearly forgot to update my weekly lent journal! we are 37% of the way through lent, which tends to indicate some stagnation in terms of the change my relationship has to my ascetic goal. Directly related to lentphone, the cracks are showing: I spend my toilet mornings on my iphone instead of reading a book or something (which, to an extent, has reasons relating to germ contamination as a chief roadblock) and I spend more time message searching (Alex fans will remember that in 2024 I had to give it up alongside lentphone because it became too problematic and I spent a LOT of time ruminating over previous relationships with it. It was not even inherintly negative, but it felt like a time suck after a point.) My message searching is not ruminative like before, more a light nostalgia of old groupchats and specific interactions I had before covid (running into me trying to get a coworker to cover my pizza place shift 1 day before the entire united states entered a lockdown and while I had a fever was entertaining). Still, I could be reading books or doing really easy crossword puzzles or something. I have pretty much spent all the imaginable time I can in settings so I have less to look at there.

For some reason, I have spent more time on instagram in the last two weeks than I had over the previous month and a half (vague estimations). There's something about the digital extension of the media that makes it more enticing. In smaller ways, I have spent more time at work looking at pinterest and mindlessly scrolling on youtube, which I would like to curb. They both tantalize with the idea of learning and mind expansion (book recs on pinterest, videos about "analog shit" so repetitive that I want to make a video denouncing all of them) but at the end of the day I am not sure I have benefitted from any of it, specifically at work. The struggle of work is that I know perfectly well what is healthy for me at work: reading books and articles and booklist magazine, writing, doing crosswords. I know what is good for me and I still choose fucking instagram. The idea of opening it this second is tantalizing.

Springtime approaches so sometimes I will open my phone while Im on a walk, a bad habit for sure, but we already know it is about that semblance of connection. I had a dream last night that I downloaded instagram on my lent phone and then felt guilty for having done so.

This is unrelated to lent but I've been in a minor musical slump, theres good stuff (usually repeat listens of personal classics) but in terms of my niche I am struggling to find a fit. Classical and new age cassettes are calling me, but I get in the car most days and feel dissatisfied with my options. The digital world and its dissatisfactions.

But yeah, a pretty standard week all things considered. Excited to redownload pokemon go, but otherwise I think I am going to take my learned lessons from this and try to apply them throughout my digital consciousness.

feb 28

10 days into lent. On a particularly lonely evening last Friday I was discussing lent phone with my friend and it brought me back to a discovery I made in the waning days of 2024 lent: when you remove all the fluff and boil it down to its absolute minutiae, when you delete everything you could possibly draw your eyes towards, making the device a piece of pure utility, you realize something: the devilish thing about the phone is how it monopolizes your desire to connect. When you boil it down, pretty much every facet of the internet in 2026 monopolizes this desire to connect, but the reason I did the challenge in the first place (and the major realization everyone seems to be having) is that they are monopolizing our attention, rather than connection. This is obvious, the TikTok's and youtube's and short form content of the world, but I think the desire piece flies under the radar. It was the major reason I considered giving up iMessage, because that is the connection I desire, and I have watched my desire for that connection ebb and flow throughout the day. I have put the phone away for stretches of time only to return with not a single notification, my darkened screen and sans serif font, my reflection through the glass. Tim cook has propelled the device into something that keeps you wanting any kind of response, and, well, he did a frighteningly good job.

But I’m sure you already know this. If you are on neocities dot org you clearly know that something is wrong in the air of the internet, otherwise you would be on instagram. Lets cut to more of the personal anecdotal ideas. Well, my new york times crossword playing has gone down. This is less about lentphone and more about my work finally (after six months) categorizing it under its game-blocking engine, but still. One of the things I loved about nyt games on my iphone was playing strands and crosswords while brushing my teeth and right before bed. Now I listen to podcasts on my mp3 player while I get ready for bed.

Since my phone does not join me in bed, there is significantly less time spent disinfecting that holds up the whole process, after my toothbrushing I get one more handwash in and I am good to go. I have my green ipod mini plugged in, booted up with podcasts and ambient, connected to an old pair of headphones as my nighttime setup. The only complaint is that as much as I like My life is better with you it can really jumpscare me in the middle of the night. That, and you cannot adjust the brightness on an ipod mini so I bump the contrast up and it still burns my eyes. These are the sacrifices I make, and they are welcome alternatives.

I have not been reading enough bible (who is shocked?) but I did download the norton critical edition ebook and I read it at work sometimes. It is much easier on the eyes and the mind with the academic descriptions behind it.

Everything else is almost exactly the same. I miss pokemon go but all of my attention has just gone towards emulated games on my ds and wii (super mario strikers and tetris have been the heaviest hitters). I have not been inspired to write and read to the same extent that I was hoping. Maybe next week.

Here are the changes to my daily screentime:



I assume next week’s will be less dry and factual because I got most of the big name changes out of the way. Hope everyone else is enjoying their lent as well.

feb 17

a little under fourteen hours until lent… oh man …. oh no. Guys I am not ready. I’m not, I went with this half thrown together to only have the iPhone app, and you know what, I’m rolling it back.

I realized it this morning when I woke up, and as I drove through the fog and I watched the lights bounce off of each particle and I felt myself think in roundabout circles I’m just gonna do my normal ass lent phone. There's a level of excessive inconvenience to those I love (and those I work with) that just feels beyond necessary, and a level of pervasive loneliness that I do not have the strength for. I never really wanted to do the no iMessage on phone thing intentionally, it just felt like the next step. Lent has felt like a steady progression from the years before it, not only did it get increasingly more difficult, but I felt like I grew to have more interesting goals each year. I would have bought a flip phone, a great medium, but I do not have $50 to throw around on novelties right now. It feels like I am failing myself and those around me by just re-upping lent phone for a second time, with no major changes. Through a holiday built around my own desire for self improvement, it feels like I am halting progress.

I work at this computer five days a week, about forty hours a week of wage-ordered computer time. Almost none of it is intrinsic to the value of my job, but much of it either feels necessary (reading, writing, coding) or entertaining (hockey and lacrosse streams). This is marred by the less necessary (snake game, youtube browsing) and the straight up evil (reddit). I want to give something else up, but as I have seen from those around me the benefit of the ascetic pursuit is usually improved when one takes it upon oneself to focus directly on the singular task. Of course I should give up reddit, I probably will just by proxy of wanting to improve my own digital experience, but I think the lentphone has to be the only primary pursuit.

I read Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport a few months back. I found it to be pretty interesting from a social perspective, but I thought the handbook guide on how to overcome the pervasive sort of screen addiction by detoxing for one month (or, in this case, 40 days and 40 nights) and then taking notice of what shit on the phone mattered to you and what didn’t. Obviously he advocates for keeping the important stuff (banking apps, weather for some reason?) but I’ll just do the bare minimum.

So what is the TL;DR? I hardly know. I’m more excited for lent. I’m gonna try to blog the process more in depth (even though I often forget to blog). Maybe weekly on Saturdays? my sabbath (except I’d be working so I guess not).