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.

Or consider this: 4.76 billion people around the world use social media for an average of about two and a half hours per day. Do the math (which I did, repeatedly, because I couldn’t believe the result), and this suggests that, collectively, humanity is spending more than 1.3 million years’ worth of attention on social media platforms every single day. How could we possibly believe that this is not having an effect on how we behave and think? Indeed, we’ve already seen these changes happening, from riots stirred up by algorithmically selected content to elections that have been swayed by misinformation. Any person or company with enough money can pay to change people’s opinions and behaviors, simply by manipulating what type of content shows up in their feeds. Governments can, too.

In summary: Every ding and vibration from our phones triggers chemical reactions in our brains that pull us away from what we are doing—or the person we are with—and compels us to check our phones, usually for someone else’s benefit. Push notifications are like Pavlov’s bell reinforcing the very habit loops we’re trying to change. They ruin our focus. They interrupt life’s most precious moments. They are evil and must be destroyed.

Having your phone on the table—which is a very common habit—signals to the person you’re with that they’re only as important as the next thing that pops up on your screen. And even if your phone is face down, it’s still likely to reduce the quality of your interactions because you’re still likely to have part of your attention trained on your phone. Put. It. Away.