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April 15 - April 20, 2023
Schemas explain why a single stimulus—say, the smell of a cake baking—can trigger a flurry of memories.
When you’re in flow, you’re so present in the moment that you feel as if you’re outside of time.
“Mindfulness is about seeing the world more clearly”—including ourselves.
They practiced paying attention to how their cravings made them emotionally and physically feel, and they used this practice as a way to “ride out” their cravings when they occurred.
As Brewer explains in The Craving Mind, most addictions stem from a desire to feel better and/or to make a bad feeling go away.
first figuring out what you’re trying to achieve or avoid,
The more you practice being mindful, the more it becomes obvious that your brain has a mind of its own. (I like to think of my mind as a good friend who also happens to be totally crazy.)
Or just find the nearest nine-year-old and have her do it for you.
Proof how kids are smarter with tech
When phone breakups fail, it’s usually due to a lack of preparation. As we’ve touched on, people tend to try to change their relationships with their phones without first asking themselves what they actually want their relationships with their phones to be. They start with a vague goal—“I want to spend less time on my phone”—without specifying what they’re actually trying to change or accomplish, or identifying why they reach for their phones to begin with. Then they try to go cold turkey, and end up feeling discouraged and powerless when it doesn’t work.
This is the equivalent of dumping someone because you say you want a “better relationship”—but, when pressed, admitting that you actually have no idea what that better relationship would look like. If you don’t take the time to figure that out, you are highly likely to end up in a relationship that’s just as unsatisfying or unhealthy as the one that you just got out of.
The point of breaking up with our phones isn’t to deprive ourselves of the benefits of modern technology. It’s to set boundaries so that we can enjoy the good parts of our phones while also protecting ourselves from the bad.
habit as “a choice that we deliberately make at some point, and then stop thinking about, but continue doing, often every day.”
The easiest way to start is to make adjustments to our lives and environments so that we avoid things that trigger our habits, and to make decisions ahead of time about how we’re going to act when we encounter particular situations that we know are likely to trigger us.
Call them out on it! When it comes to acknowledging their smartphone addictions, parents are the worst.
They’re also particularly vulnerable to feeling guilty about things they might be doing now that will screw you up later. You can make your objection known directly (“Please stop phubbing me”) or take a more aggressive approach (“I hope you know that every minute you spend on your phone while we’re together is a minute that I’ll be spending in therapy”).
phones and parenting
When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times,
“If we immediately entertain ourselves by talking, by acting, by thinking—if there’s never any pause—we will never be able to relax. We will always be speeding through our lives.”
Proust and the Squid, “New thought came more readily to a brain that had already learned how to rearrange itself to read.”
We have less time in life than we realize—but we also have more time than we think. Reclaim the hours you spend on your screens, and you’ll find that your possibilities expand. Maybe you do have time for that class, or book, or dinner. Maybe you can spend more time with that friend. Maybe there is a way for you to take that trip. The key is to keep asking yourself the same question, again and again and again: this is your life—what do you want to pay attention to?
The Distracted Mind: Ancient Brains in a High-Tech World
“They haven’t used it”: Nick Bilton, “Steve Jobs Was a Low-Tech Parent,” Disruptions, New York Times, September 11, 2014, www.nytimes.com/2014/09/11/fashion/steve-jobs-apple-was-a-low-tech-parent.html.
the App Store initially refused: 60 Minutes, “What Is ‘Brain Hacking’?”
The closer we pay attention”: Harris, “How Technology Is Hijacking Your Mind.”
Ramsay Brown: 60 Minutes, “What Is ‘Brain Hacking’?”
39,757 years’: Nick Bilton, “Reclaiming Our (Real) Lives from Social Media,” Disruptions, New York Times, July 16, 2014, www.nytimes.com/2014/07/17/fashion/reclaiming-our-real-lives-from-social-media.html?mcubz=1.
