Finding Freedom from Our Phones, Part 1
I’m not here to tell you to break up with your phone. You are the expert on you, and only you know if your relationship to your phone is working for you.
However, I am in the business of helping people feel less alone. And a great many people feel some degree of distress over their phone usage. So if that includes you, you’re in the right place.
Our smartphones contain plenty of tools that are beneficial and even essential to the way we live today (reminder apps! video calls with loved ones! GPS!). In fact, so many functions of work and daily life are now digital and/or mobile-based that “screen time” is no longer a helpful measure of healthy phone use. In today’s world, we move in and out of our phones constantly throughout the day. So instead of how much we use our phones, the salient issue now is what we use our phones for and the impact of our phone habits on our lives and wellbeing.
In contrast to those utilitarian uses of the phone — generally unproblematic and easy to disengage from, once they’ve served their purpose — much of the time we end up spending on our phones feels unconscious, uncontrolled, even involuntary. When we’re all glued to our screens, it’s clear that our phones are captivating; that is, we are being held captive, primarily by apps that kidnap our attention, steal our time (and our money), and leave us feeling bad about ourselves.
Perhaps one or more of the following feel familiar:
• We feel the quality and duration of our attention degrading, like we can’t focus or tune in to anything for an extended period of time
• We’re lowering our standards for our own behavior, like we can’t even go to the bathroom without bringing our phones, or we’re falling short of our own values by using our phones at dinner or in front of our kids
• We feel drained by the blurry boundaries between work and personal life, leashed to our phones with 24/7 access via text, email, Slack, etc.
• We’re constantly sucked into the news on our phones — becoming increasingly anxious, outraged, and despairing — as we chase every update and notification, read every incendiary comment, and continue to consume news coverage even after we’ve read enough to be informed
• We zone out on video platforms, passively absorbing algorithmic content, while our intentions for work, homework, bedtime, etc. get pushed further and further away
• We feel trapped by social media, like we have to be there to stay relevant and connected, even when the performance of life online and the comparison to others leaves us feeling exhausted, inadequate, jealous, or resentful
• We find ourselves spending time and money that we don’t want to shopping, gaming, and gambling online (including sports betting and prediction markets)
We know these habits don’t serve us — the research is clear, and we feel it in our own lives and in our own bodies. So why don’t we stop? Why don’t we free ourselves?
From my perspective, there are two reasons why we stay stuck in our phone patterns: (1) our phone use meets a critical need that we have, and (2) these technologies have rewired our brains.
There is still so much to dig into, so I’m going to split this topic into two posts. My goal here isn’t to write lengthy essays; it’s to provide useful information to help you live with more ease. So in the interest of making this information accessible and digestible, let’s pause for now and pick up the rest in part 2. That’s where we’ll get into practical steps for freeing ourselves from our unwanted phone habits.