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

by Catherine Price

“The physical presence of another human being cannot be duplicated by a machine. There is no substitute for being together.” Dr. Murthy puts it even more bluntly: “The more of these easy connections we substitute for old-fashioned, hard-won friendship, the lonelier we’ll feel.”

Today, I’d argue that we can take this even further: if you wanted to invent a device that could rewire our brains, if you wanted to create a society of people who were perpetually distracted, burned out, and overtired, if you wanted to weaken our ability to focus, remember, and engage in deep thought, if you wanted to increase our rates of loneliness, anxiety, depression, self-absorption, and self-harm, if you wanted to reduce empathy and creativity, encourage polarization and extremism, and damage our most important relationships, you’d likely end up with a smartphone.

I find it terrifying to think about all the ideas and insights that humanity is not having as a result of our being constantly distracted by our phones—the potential opportunity costs are enormous.

The question of how, exactly, algorithms are trying to modify us (and who is paying for it) is one that all of us should be asking—because as Lanier’s sinister tone suggests, algorithms aren’t just being used to sell us things. They’re also being used to influence our non-purchasing behaviors, values, and beliefs—and, in so doing, to influence who we are.