How to Break Up With Your Phone

8 Steps to Take Back Your Life

It happened again yesterday. I picked up my phone instead of my free weights. I opened Instagram instead of a book. I scrolled away an hour of my life, two hours, three hours. Time passed, and I fell down the rabbit hole of seven-second videos and influencers and advertisements, and now I feel bad about everything. 

One problem with scrolling is the way it changes your ability to focus. To write a novel, I need to disappear into the deepest parts of myself for long periods of time, to shift out of my reality and into someone else’s. I need space and time and quiet to see the connections and bring them together in a rich tapestry that exists outside of my head. 

But lately, it’s been hard to disappear. I’ve been struggling to concentrate and get into the flow. Even as I write this, my fingers itch to click the soft button on the side of my phone, watch the screen light up, check for notifications. Is anyone in this world thinking about me? Do I still exist if I don’t post a picture of the London Fog I’m drinking today? 

Do you remember those anti-drug commercials from the late 80s? A man holds up a perfectly white, unblemished egg and says, This is your brain. Then he cracks it into a frying pan. This is your brain on drugs. I wonder what that man would do if he was trying to relay the perils of the internet. 

This is your brain. That perfect egg. This is your brain using your smartphone. He throws the egg against a wall and then sets the kitchen on fire.

People who study habits say that the best time to start a new one is when there’s a trigger, something to remind you and motivate you to engage in a change. So, in the spirit of resolutions and celebrating the people we want to be in 2024, here are some things I’m doing to break up with my phone. 

Step 1: Question Your Habits

I’ve been talking a lot about boundaries with my therapist. One thing I’m learning is that, in the past, I haven’t always given myself permission to ask for what I want or what I need. In my case, some of this behavior results from family dynamics, some is from growing up in a strict religion, the rest is definitely related to the patriarchy and what we’ve been told about how to be a good woman.

So I’m trying to do that more, to ask, What do you want? What do you need? And then sit quietly and wait for the answer.

Often I pick up my phone because I’m tired or my brain hurts or my soul hurts and I’m looking for a distraction, or a hug. But scrolling never satisfies that need. It numbs me for a while, but I don’t want to be numb. I want to move through my feelings. I want to rest. I want to restore. I want to reconnect. So now, before I scroll, I’m challenging my learned behavior.

What do you really want right now? Will picking up your phone give you what you truly need?

Step 2: Redirect Your Attention

The urge to pick up my phone and start scrolling is strong. I can tell myself all day long that I just want to see what my friends are up to, but after I’ve caught up with my friends, and I’m scrolling through strangers’ feeds and ad loops, the reason becomes a terrible excuse. 

Enter the list. Activities I can do in 30-60 second bursts of time, while I wait for the urge to pass. Breathing or meditative exercises. A quick sun salutation or two. Grab a book off my shelf and read the first paragraph. Keep a collection of poetry next to my desk and read a poem instead. Ten squats. Ten bicep curls. Make a cup of tea. Give the dog a treat. Make the bed.

If the urge lingers, it may be time to redirect to a more intensive activity. Take a long walk. Listen to a new podcast. Clean out the closet. Read a short story. Write an article about how to break up with your phone. 

Step 3: Finish What You Start

I know something needs to change when I’m reaching for my phone before I even finish getting dressed in the morning. I get out of the shower, wrap myself in a towel, grab my phone, write a hilarious text, check my email, open Instagram, and the next thing I know, my hair is dry and I’m still naked and also now I’m late for work. 

So this is my new rule: finish the task first. Whatever I’m doing, I am not allowed to pick up my phone until that task is done. Don’t even think about looking at your phone until you’ve put your clothes on and buttered your toast. 

Step 4: Track Your Usage

There’s a mantra I like to repeat to myself: My phone is a tool. I use it. It does not use me. 

Except, so often it does. 

Have you ever looked at your screen usage? You can usually find it somewhere in the Settings of your phone. At the end of 2023, when things were getting out of control for me, I reviewed 4 weeks of my phone usage. Here’s what I found:

Week 1: 23 hours

Week 2: 29 hours

Week 3: 26 hours

Week 4: 32 hours

Total time: 110 hours, or 4.5 days

I’ll be honest with you. When I ran these numbers, I wanted to cry. I wanted to pull the covers over my head and wallow in my shame and self-loathing. 

A friend told me his usage was higher. He was averaging closer to 37 hours every week. He was trying to make me feel better, or at least, normal. But I just can’t stop thinking about the whole days we spend inside a tiny screen as our lives pass us by.

Yes, some of this screen time is justified. I’m using my phone to watch YouTube videos that teach me how to paint. I’m reading an article that’s making me think differently about the publishing industry. I’m texting my friends to make plans for the weekend. I’m using Google maps to drive to a new bookstore.

But if I’m honest, I spend most of my time on social media scrolling and making myself anxious.

The point of tracking what you do with your time isn’t to shame you. It’s simply facing down the hard truth of how much time you spend on your phone and deciding if you would rather do something else.

Remember that old choices don’t have to be always choices. You can start replacing old habits with new ones any time you want. You probably won’t be perfect at it right out of the gate. In fact, I know you won’t. You’ll slip up, more than once, but the point is to keep trying. Keep showing up for the version of your life you want to make. 

Step 5: Create More Than You Consume

Humans like to make things. We like to solve problems and tell stories. We like to fit old pieces together into new shapes. We create, and in that creation, we find meaning. An inconsequential life turns into one with purpose. 

But often when I’m using my phone, I’m consuming social media, which is like eating a bag of potato chips or a bowl of M&Ms. It’s one handful and then another until I’m not even paying attention to the flavors anymore. It all tastes the same. Salty and sweet turn to flat and sugar. Gone is the subtlety, the texture. Gone is the pleasure, too. 

So I keep my phone in different places now. Next to my journal. Or on the same shelf where I keep my paint brushes. Or plugged into the wall behind my piano. If I reach for my phone, I want my hand to move toward the pen instead, to open my sketchbook, or push the power button and dance over a few keys. The hunger I feel is one that seven-second videos and pictures of someone else’s art cannot satiate. It runs deeper than that, straight to the core of what it means to be human. 

Eating a handful of M&Ms every once in a while is fine. It’s fun. It makes you smile. But you can’t live on M&Ms. You need something more nutrient rich, something dense, something to really chew on. You need to make yourself a hearty bowl of soup and nourish your own creative soul.

Step 6: Set A Timer

I think our society has moved past the point where throwing our phones in the trash is a viable option. We use them as calendars, clocks, alarms, flashlights. We use them to communicate with people we love. We use them to capture favorite memories. I use mine to write books sometimes. 

So if exiling our phones isn’t an option, what do we do instead? Give in and give ourselves over to Big Tech? I don’t think that’s the answer either. Perhaps the answer lies in that age old saying: everything in moderation.

I like to set a timer for ten minutes if I’m going to be on my phone, especially if I’m going to be on social media. I set the timer on my phone so that it interrupts and I’m forced to decide. To ask myself, Do you want to keep scrolling or do you want to go do something else with your life?

In the same way a timer can be helpful, most apps, especially social media apps, have a pause or mute option. You can pause the app for 24 hours and if you try to open the app, it asks if you want to unpause. Again, this forces you to make a choice, and it’s that split second where you can repave your neural pathways by leaving the app paused and redirecting your attention to a different activity. 

Step 7: Less Is More

There are days I want to throw my phone off a cliff. I haven’t done that yet.

But there are days when I lose my phone. On purpose. 

It’s okay to spend some time on your phone, but the less you use your phone, the less you’ll want to use your phone. And the less I’m on my phone, the more I can enrich other areas of my life. I want to expand, and being on my phone makes me shrink. 

So lose your phone sometimes. Pick one day a week and power down completely. Put it in a drawer and walk away. If a whole day is too much for you, pick a set time every day. No phone before breakfast. Or no phone after 8pm. Keep it out of sight. And if the urge hits, go back to step one and ask yourself what you really want.

Step 8: Just Delete It Already

And now we come to the most drastic step.

If you try the first seven steps and none of them work, then it may be time to delete the most distracting apps from your phone. The ones you feel are the most toxic. For me, those are social media apps. But maybe it’s a calorie counting app or a fitness app or a news app. 

Sign out of the accounts and remove the apps from your phone. Keep them off your phone for a few weeks. Maybe you’ll want to download some apps again, or maybe you’ll realize you don’t need them in your life anymore and you’ll delete your accounts permanently.

The point is to give yourself the space to decide.

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The creators of these apps set them up to be addicting. These companies profit off our usage and our scrolling. The more time we spend on their apps, the more money they make. So it’s not a complete surprise that so many of us have a hard time staying off our phones even when we desperately want to. Even when we have a long list of other things we want to be doing with our lives. 

The cravings subside the less time you spend with your phone. I’ve gone through these steps enough times in my life to know they work. And yes, some days I mess up and it’s two steps forward and one step back, and sometimes I have to start over at the vert beginning, but if I stick to it, if I commit, I always end up feeling better after a few weeks. I feel more focused and free, and I definitely have more energy to pursue the work of my soul.   

That’s what this is all about. I’m not here to shame anyone or make us feel bad about existing as humans in the smartphone era. And I’m not trying to force you to do anything you don’t want to do. If you are happy spending hours, days, weeks on your phone, by all means, do whatever the fuck you want to do with your life. 

But what’s important for me is living my life with intention. Choosing when I use my phone, rather than letting it choose for me. It’s about filling my life with beauty and whimsy and wonder and experiences. It’s about doing things that expand my soul, not deflate it.

That’s what I want for this year, and every year after. A well-lived life where I celebrate the small choices I make every day to feel good.  

What kind of life do you hope to make for yourself this year?

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wander on my friends…

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