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

by Catherine Price

Over the next twenty-four hours, try to notice • Situations in which you nearly always find yourself using your phone. (For example, waiting in line, in the elevator, in the car.) Also note the first time in the morning and the last time in the evening that you typically look at your phone. • How your posture changes when using your phone. • Your emotional state right before you reach for your phone. (For example: bored, curious, anxious, happy, lonely, excited, sad, loving, and so on.) • Your emotional state right after you use your phone (Do you feel better? Worse? Did your phone satisfy whatever emotional need caused you to reach for it?) • How and how often your phone grabs your attention (via notifications, texts, and the like). • How you feel while you are using your phone—as well as how you feel when you realize that you don’t have your phone. The point here is to start to become aware of when and how your phone triggers your brain to release dopamine and cortisol—and what you feel like when that happens. (Very generally speaking, cravings are a desire for dopamine, dopamine itself feels exciting, and cortisol feels like anxiety.)