Today, just over a decade since smartphones entered our lives, we’re beginning to suspect that their impact on our lives might not be entirely good. We feel busy but ineffective. Connected but lonely. The same technology that gives us freedom can also act like a leash—and the more tethered we become, the more it raises the question of who’s actually in control. The result is a paralyzing tension: We love our phones, but we often hate the way they make us feel. And no one seems to know what to do about it. The problem isn’t smartphones themselves. The problem is our relationships with them. Smartphones have infiltrated our lives so quickly and so thoroughly that we have never stopped to think about what we actually want our relationships with them to look like—or what effects these relationships might be having on our lives. In order to stick to our intentions, it’s essential to have a plan. Use these as a guideline, but I request that you come up with your own personalized descriptions for the following seven habits about how you interact with your phone and other wireless mobile devices. (Don’t be surprised if their effects spread into other areas of your life as well.) In order to create true habits, these new behaviors need to become so second nature that we do them without thought. The best way to accomplish this is to make decisions ahead of time about how we want to act in particular situations so that when we encounter those situations, we follow our new, healthy habits without having to think. For example: You may also want to actually give yourself permission to scroll mindlessly through your phone during a particular time of day (in other words, to use your phone to take a break). Allowing yourself regular guilt-free phone time will help you avoid bingeing and make it much easier to stick to your overall goals long-term. Also, given the effects our phones have had on our attention spans, you may need to schedule regular phone time for yourself when you’re trying to work on your ability to focus. Start small—maybe you concentrate for 10 minutes and then give yourself one minute on your phone—and then build up to longer durations of focus. If you’re worried that a half-hour of free phone time will quickly become two hours, then use an app-blocker to schedule sessions for yourself in advance. Describe your plans for how and when you will give yourself free phone time. If, after reading this, you’re interested in a 30-day phone breakup challenge, go for it! This seems like a good place to point out that if you’ve gone through this entire “breakup,” and your relationship with your phone still doesn’t feel perfect, don’t worry: It’s not supposed to. In a sense, our phones—both our relationships with them and the physical devices themselves—are reminders that everything in life is constantly changing and that fluctuations are inevitable. On some days, we will feel good; on others, we won’t. And that’s OK. As long as we’re cultivating self-awareness, we’re on the right track. Want more digital detox? Here’s your official checklist for a tech-free day. The above has been excerpted from Catherine Price’s topical new book, How to Break Up With Your Phone (Ten Speed Press, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC) and modified for mindbodygreen. Price is also a recipient of a Middlebury Fellowship in Environmental Reporting, a two-time Société de Chimie Industrielle fellow at the Chemical Heritage Foundation, an ASME nominee, a 2013 resident at the Mesa Refuge, a fellow in both the Food and Medical Evidence Boot Camps at the Knight Science Journalism Program at MIT, and winner of the Gobind Behari Lal prize for science writing.
