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

by Catherine Price

The problem isn’t smartphones themselves. The problem is our relationships with them.

prioritizing real-life relationships over those that take place on screens.

“Addicts show a loss of control of the activity, compulsively seek it out despite negative consequences, develop tolerance so that they need higher and higher levels of stimulation for satisfaction, and experience withdrawal if they can’t consummate the addictive act.”

The point is that many of the same feel-good brain chemicals and reward loops that drive addictions are also released and activated when we check our phones.

technology designers deliberately manipulate our dopamine responses to make it extremely difficult for us to stop using their products.

what really gets us hooked isn’t consistency; it’s unpredictability. It’s knowing that something could happen—but not knowing when or if that something will occur.

spending a lot of time on social media could be associated with depression and lower self-esteem. What doesn’t make sense is that we are deliberately choosing to relive the worst parts of middle school.

our attention is the most valuable thing we have. We experience only what we pay attention to. We remember only what we pay attention to.