How I beat my phone addiction Total abstinence doesn’t work

My most viral X post ever was composed with fewer than 10 seconds of thought. I was at the mall with my three children in early 2024. But instead of engaging with them, as they climbed around various objects, I was absorbed by my screen, scrolling through the feed. Then a short video of a giddy Sydney Sweeney popped up, from her appearance on Saturday Night Live.

“Wokeness is dead,” I typed out. This was a succinct way to express the idea that there was something subversive about a blonde female celebrity unapologetically appealing to the male gaze. It’s not too much to say that this launched the discourse around Sydney Sweeney as a Right-wing icon, prompting dozens of think pieces across the ideological spectrum and feeding into the debates generated by Sweeney’s controversial “good jeans” commercial for American Eagle.

The result: I’m mentioned on Sweeney’s Wikipedia page, one of my proudest accomplishments.

Yet by many people’s intuitions, when I sent that Sweeney post, I shouldn’t have been online at all — I should have been playing with my kids. My scrolling and posting at the moment were related to what you might call my “phone addiction,” though I don’t like the term; the vocabulary of mental health likely causes more problems than it solves. Better to say, simply, that over the years, I’ve looked at my phone too much.

But more recently, with the start of the new year, I’ve managed to keep the habit in check. This, without giving up technology or screens altogether, which would be impossible for me — that is, unless I were willing to give up on my information-based line of work. But as the Sweeney post showed, in this job, it pays to always be ready to blast out an inspired line or take at the right moment. The post did bring me a great deal of attention; punditry is, in part, a numbers game, especially in a digital age. Likely, online attention and interaction are beneficial for your work, too, even if your job is less public-facing than mine.

In my defense, moreover, when I’m on my phone, I’m mostly doing things that are squarely related to my job as a writer. I surf real news, cycling through the apps for Substack, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, and other high-quality sources of information. The rest of the time is spent answering emails or direct messages, participating in group chats, and, above all, tweeting (or whatever it’s called nowadays). Practically all my book reading is now done through screens, too. Still, despite these practical uses, I have for years walked around with the nagging feeling that I should cut back. 

And now I’ve managed it. How? I’ve made some rules that share three important qualities: they are strict, minor, and realistic. There’s no silver bullet. Rather, I’ve found that moderation is the best policy. And it has made a real difference in terms of improving my productivity and ability to focus. 

Absolute restrictions don’t work. In the past, I tried (or thought about trying) drastic rules, such as not using the phone during meals, when I’m with my kids, during an entire day of the week, or for four to eight hour periods. But I’ve concluded that such measures are too demanding. Maybe one day, I will be able to afford these more substantial breaks, but I’m not there yet. Nonetheless, while total abstinence over any substantial period of time is not a realistic option, there have been a few easy ways to cut my screen time, while helping, rather than hindering, my ability to communicate with a large audience.

It’s actually one, easy rule: I’ve eliminated device usage during what I call transition periods.

For example, take going to the gym. It used to be normal for me to look at my phone when I arrived, in periods between switching stations, and when walking from one part of the facility to another. I would thus end up spending too much time in the gym, when it would’ve been better for my state of mind, productivity, and physical health if I just simply put the phone away and listened to music without scrolling through apps and social media feeds. I’d certainly be able to do more sets in a shorter period of time. So now I have a new rule: no being on my phone while working out, except for choosing which songs to listen to.

Peeing had also come to take up too much of my time. Standing at a urinal is 10 seconds of my life where I have always found it more enjoyable to scroll X than stare at a tiled wall. But as with the gym, once you allow the phone to intrude on that, ahem, sacred space, everyday activities are drawn out. A quick glance might absorb me in a comments section or group chat. The 10-second urinal visit, in this way, ends up taking several minutes, by the end of which I forget the next thing I need to do. This adds up. Sometimes, it’s good to have 10 seconds just to think — or urinate — without any outside stimulation, freeing oneself to get back to work as soon as possible. 

The biggest change has been no longer looking at my phone while walking or driving. Yes, I was actually doing this. Now, if I’m walking and have the urge to read an article or respond to text, I will either put it off or stop in my tracks in order to scratch that itch. The most dangerous thing for productivity and the general flow of life isn’t when I’m focusing completely on a device. Rather, it’s been the in-between states, when I’m distracted by the screen in my hand while I am supposed to be working out, going to the bathroom, or just walking from Point A to Point B. In these intervals, I’m usually not handling the phone for its more productive uses, such as reading books or answering emails, so I’m just making every task take much longer than it otherwise would, for little benefit. 

And yes, in the past, I’ve sent texts and composed tweets while on the road. I once heard that John von Neumann read books while driving, and since I wanted to be a genius like him, I also took up the practice. It’s actually doable. Like von Neumann, though, I also have a habit of getting into car accidents and decided to no longer tempt fate. No more looking at my phone, even at a stoplight. The practice of scrolling for a short indeterminate amount of time has no real advantages, interrupts what could be fruitful trains of thought, and is difficult to prevent from snowballing into being online while the vehicle is moving — amid the unpredictable sea of other cars, pedestrians, garbage trucks, and so on.

That’s it. Walking, driving, working out, peeing. It doesn’t seem like much. But these things cumulatively make up a large part of my days — and those of many others. I have not adopted an antagonistic relationship with my phone. It is, after all, a library of books, a daily newsstand, a connection with friends, and even my job — the portal through which I influence the world. 

There would be no way to hate my phone without hating myself and everything I am doing in life. I am grateful to Big Tech for giving me a single device through which, within the span of a few minutes, I can look at pictures of my kids at school, post a comment on some contemporary controversy that might be seen by millions of people, and read a page or two from Diarmaid MacCulloch’s magisterial new book on the history of sex in Christianity. We shouldn’t forget that we are lucky to be alive in the time after Steve Jobs made his contribution to the world. 

Even with my more limited cutback, I’ve seen changes to the rhythm and flow of life. Now, much more often than before, I’ll notice some quirk of someone I come across whom I previously would have ignored, and I’ll strike up a conversation with them. Or my ear will catch the chatter of a married couple fighting, which will cause some reflection on the human condition. Sometimes, I just have a few extra seconds to ponder an important idea that I’ve read in a book, using brain space that would otherwise be occupied by intricate knowledge of some completely worthless social-media feud.

Nonetheless, the nature of my work and my intellectual interests means that I have to practice moderation toward the real world as much as I do toward cyberspace. I’m not making any heroic attempts to be less online. It would be nice to say that I unplug and take entire afternoons off to play with my children. But here’s a secret about kids: they’re kind of boring in large doses. You can make a silly face, throw them up in the air and catch them, buy them a toy, and so on. But after a while, you find yourself looking for something more stimulating. I don’t feel bad about allowing them to run off and play while I look at my phone, and then turning my attention back to them while chuckling over a very funny tweet I just sent. 

In addition to letting go of the belief that my family needs my full attention, I’ve also given up on the romantic dream of a simpler life, in which work and recreation are kept separate, or in which “meatspace” is the default and the digital realm is the exception. When I’m tweeting, I’m working, being entertained, engaging in self-expression, and keeping up with friends at the same time. 

Like every other intellectual, I have moments in which I envy those who work “normal,” tangible jobs and are supposedly doing something much more real and in tune with human nature than I am. But I quickly snap out of it, understanding that, for better or worse, I’ve chosen the kind of life in which someone with my peculiar combination of strengths and weaknesses is most likely to flourish. Appreciating the phone without letting it control my life is in part a story about self-acceptance and growing increasingly confident in my place in the universe. 

One day, I would like to step away. Perhaps not permanently, or even for a multiyear period, but just long enough to get a true feeling of what it is like to live without a constant sense of connection to the outside world as mediated through pixels on a six-inch screen. I’m just old enough to remember being an adult without the iPhone, but it’s been so long that there is no way to trust that my memories are accurate, and haven’t been radically distorted by the conversation around what phones are doing to our national politics and the mental health of young people.

There is a balance we must all live with. For some, going cold turkey, or taking prolonged breaks, might make sense. If writing essays like this one weren’t my job, circumstances would probably push me more in that direction. Many years down the line I might be satisfied enough with my accomplishments, influence upon the world, and level of wisdom attained to put the phone down completely. Until then, I’ll see you on Substack, X, and the UnHerd app. 

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