How to Break Up with Your Phone, Revised Edition: The 30-Day Digital Detox Plan

by Catherine Price

schedule a regular check-in with yourself.

What parts of your relationship with your phone are going well? What about your relationship with your phone do you want to change? What’s one thing you could do to start? What are you doing—or what could you do—to strengthen your focus? What are you doing to stay in touch with your senses and your physical body? What fun plans could you make to spend time with people you care about? Have you reinstalled any of the apps that you previously deleted, let your phone back into your bedroom, turned notifications back on, or slipped back into any other old habits? If so, no judgment—but what could you do to get back on track? What are your goals for the next thirty days? What are you curious about? What’s something you want to do or try? What do you want to pay attention to?

write a note to yourself describing what you are proud of accomplishing over the course of this breakup.

We do our best to keep our phones away when we’re together and to model for our daughter the habits that we want to practice for ourselves and instill in her.

just as light will fade a photograph, spending too much time on screens saps the color from my experiences. The more I pay attention to the actual world around me, the more vividness returns.

technology is as primitive as it’s ever going to be.

it’s essential for us to start having conversations—individually and as a society—about what we want and don’t want from technology. We need to change our own habits so that our actions better align with our values.

This is your life—what do you want to pay attention to?