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I think all of us can admit that we have relationships with our phones that are…not the healthiest. In his book, Digital Minimalism, Cal Newport refers to the concept of a “cell phone as a vital appendage.” This definitely used to be true for me – I rarely even walked from one room to another without my phone. Catherine Price, in her book, How to Break Up with Your Phone, quotes a variety of alarming statistics. Americans spend an average of 4 ours per day on their phones, which amounts to 56 full days per year. They check their phones about 47 times per day, and that number shoots up to 82 for young adults. 75% of Americans aged 25-34 report they check their phone in the middle of the night. It’s clear many of us need to break the phone addiction.
Newport explains how this situation came to arise. To summarize, smartphones and all the associated apps came out in the early 2000s. Most people bought a smartphone and downloaded these apps because they had some benefit. For example, many of us downloaded Facebook to connect with friends and family far away. But none of us considered the costs of these technologies until we were already sucked in. Many mobile apps, from social media to games, are intentionally addictive in order to trap your attention for as long as possible.
My experience certainly mirrors Newport’s description. Friends encouraged me to download various apps to stay in touch. For example, I didn’t have much interest in Instagram. A couple friends urged me to download it so they could share memes with me. So, I did. But when I got a notification and opened the app, I was sucked in to scrolling, sometimes for long stretches – when I only intended to check a message. And because I didn’t have any boundaries around when I checked notifications, this could happen at inconvenient times. In 2025, when political shifts in the US started to drastically negatively affect my industry, I started checking the news regularly for the first time. It was shocking how quickly just this one habit created anxiety and distress. And yet I was even more drawn to my phone during this challenging period.
But I’m not going to spend too much time convincing you why you should reassess your relationship with your phone. I think everyone who arrived here agrees that our phone habits are problematic.
My goal for this post is not to show you how to do a full digital detox or to ditch your smartphone. While those are good ideas, I know it’s intimidating to go cold turkey. It’s easy to put it off and say you’ll start that regime tomorrow, next week, or with the new year. Instead, I’m offering some baby steps that made a huge difference to how I related to my phone. These steps were incredibly easy to implement, and yet they made a huge impact on my daily happiness and mental health.
Baby Steps to Break the Phone Addiction
When it comes to reducing your phone usage, there’s so much advice out there that it can become overwhelming. These are 5 super easy steps that worked well for me.
1. Delete Social Media Apps Only from Your Phone
This is a baby step, because I’m not encouraging you to deactivate your social media accounts entirely. You can use them but only on a computer. In Digital Minimalism, Newport suggests this trick and explains that these apps’ addictive functions only work on mobile. When was the last time you checked Instagram on a web browser? Did you scroll for hours? Or did you respond to some messages and then close out of it? I’m betting it was the latter. It’s just not as satisfying to scroll endlessly on a computer.
Price calls these apps “junk food apps” and “slot machine apps.”
Junk food apps are fun and sometimes useful, but they’re too addictive. Examples: social media, news apps, shopping apps, internet browsers, messaging apps, real estate apps, games, and even email.
Slot machine apps include intentionally addictive dopamine triggers. Examples: social media, dating apps, shopping apps, games.
I want to include a quick note on dating apps, which Price puts in this category, considering I met my husband on one. There is a benefit to expanding the number of people you encounter if you’re looking for a partner. There’s a reason these are in the “slot machine” category, though – swiping through potential matches can be addictive. I’d say you can keep these – preferably just one – and set a specific time of the day when you’ll check it. Focus on finding matches and meeting up in real life rather than swiping endlessly.
If you know other apps are time wasters for you, ditch those from your phone as well. This may be the most powerful hack to break the phone addiction. If you’re hesitating, tell yourself it’s just a one-week experiment. Trust me, you’ll feel so much better after a week that you’ll have no problem keeping it up.
2. Download Your Library App and/or an E-Reader App
I realize it’s ironic to advise downloading more apps as part of how to break the phone addiction. But this hack worked so well for me that I have to. I used to joke that after being a voracious reader as a teen, I became essentially “illiterate” as an adult. I rarely read books. After realizing social media use and news checking was making me miserable, I decided to use the Libby app to request free e-books from my library. I made a rule: every time I was tempted to open a social media app – while sitting in a waiting room, on the bus, etc. – I would read part of a book instead. And suddenly, after years of “illiteracy,” I had read 8 books in a month. More importantly, my anxiety disappeared, and I felt content in my daily life, despite the upheaval my career field.
For this experiment, I recommend requesting fun books – whatever that means for you. For me, I rediscovered the love of fantasy I had as a teen. Not every minute of your life has to be educational. Even a book that’s, say, less than intellectual, doesn’t have the built-in addictive features of a social media app or mobile game.
If you don’t think books will be your thing, you could try replacing these apps with others that are less addictive and more beneficial. I recommend the Finch app, which gamifies self-care. You could also use DuoLingo to do fun language mini lessons when you’re tempted to scroll. As a former language teacher, I have to give the caveat that little 3-minute DuoLingo bursts will not make you fluent. However, you will learn something new each lesson, and that’s much better than letting social media rot your brain.
3. Disable Notifications
This may be the most obvious of my tips, but it’s commonly recommended for a reason. If you allow them to, every app will try to demand your attention using periodic buzzes and chimes. Even if you only look for a brief moment to read the notification, your concentration on the task at hand or the conversation you’re having is broken. And when notifications successfully pique your curiosity, you could end up getting sucked into a longer scrolling session.
Newport recommends that you not only disable notifications but also make a rule that you only answer texts at specific times during the day. As a people-pleaser, I found this hack to be life changing. I hate to leave people waiting, so I feel a strong urge to read messages immediately and reply as soon as possible. But no one is really expecting you to reply immediately to their messages. In many cases, they’d probably prefer that you didn’t, so they could get things done in their real life as well. Schedule specific times each day to read your texts and personal e-mails and reply. If you’re worried about emergencies, you can use your phone settings to allow texts from certain people or to flag emergency messages.
Even as I recommend this tip, I feel the need to add a caveat: If there’s someone in your life – a partner, someone you’re dating, etc. – that’s used to hearing from you 24/7, please give them a heads up that you’re changing this habit so they don’t panic.
4. Practice Taking Short Trips Without Your Phone
This is another tip I took from Digital Minimalism. As much as it sounds common-sense to practice leaving your phone home if you’re working to break the phone addiction, it was shocking how hard this was to implement. Even if I was just going out to get the mail, I felt the need to have my phone. And there’s always a reason you can convince yourself it’s necessary. What if I forget my key and need to call someone for help? What if I’m out without my phone and the daycare calls saying there’s an emergency with my kid?
If leaving home without your phone feels like too much for a baby step, you can start with just a quick walk around the neighborhood or a trip to pick up a few things at the corner store. And if that’s too much at first, just carry your phone in a backpack or somewhere else that makes it inconvenient to get to it. Even that will break your habit of pulling out your phone to check it. The first few times you try this, you may be surprised by how often your hand reflexively reaches for it.
5. Schedule Fun Things to Do in the Real World
Newport dedicates a section of Digital Minimalism to breaking down the differences between “high-quality” and “low-quality” leisure. Low-quality leisure includes things like watching a streaming service or scrolling on your phone – or both at the same time! These are passive activities that feel “easy” but counterintuitively decrease your energy. High-quality leisure is active, involves applying skills to create something, and/or involves real-world social interactions. These leisure activities require more engagement, and yet they increase your energy. If it sounds strange that passive activities could sap your energy and active ones could boost it, consider this: Have you ever felt exhausted after a workday spent sitting at a desk, not even particularly busy? And by contrast, have you felt energized after doing a sport you love or going for a walk with a friend?
Newport recommends doing a 30-day digital detox during which you replace your time with devices with high-quality leisure. But you don’t need to be detoxing in order to do this. Scheduling higher-quality leisure will naturally crowd out time available to passively stare at your phone.
First, list at least 3 active things you really enjoy. Examples: sports, exercise classes, hiking, walking your dog, baking/cooking, knitting, crafting/art, gardening, meeting friends.
Then, schedule them. Sign up for exercise classes or coordinate a time to meet up with a friend. Even if it’s just walking your dog, put it in your calendar.
Why schedule it? If you don’t, it’s too easy to fall back into your old habits. If possible, ask a friend or loved one to do the activity with you. That way, you can’t back out if you feel a bit tired after work.
Do this for even just week and you’ll be amazed that being busier – but with activities you enjoy – actually increases your energy.
Resources to Go Further: A Full Phone Breakup
I recommend the tips above as baby steps to break the phone addiction. If you feel intimidated by the idea of going cold turkey without your phone, try these first. When I implemented them, I saw immediate improvements in my mental health. These included reduced anxiety, better sleep, and overall contentment. I also rediscovered a passion for reading, coordinated fun weekend activities with my family, and started meeting up with friends more often. All those changes not only reduced the amount of time I could passively stare at my phone, but they also greatly improved my life in their own right.
If you have similar results, you may want to go further on your journey to a full phone breakup. If so, these books are excellent resources:
Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport: I summarized this book in another post. It includes a great rundown of the problem with “techno-maximalism” and how to break the phone addiction for good. It also includes stories of real digital minimalists who practice this lifestyle to varying degrees (from people who avoid certain apps to the Amish and everyone in between). The stories are inspirational and show that even an “extreme” lack of digital connectedness won’t ruin your life like you fear.
How to Break Up with Your Phone by Catherine Price: This book is short, pithy, and super useful. It outlines the many reasons you should break the phone addiction. But even more useful is the detailed, day-by-day 4-week plan for gradually implementing a full breakup with your phone. Price provides so many tips and hacks, that some of them are guaranteed to work for you.
What Do You Think?
Have you ever tried these methods? What about a digital detox or “digital sabbath”? Or any other habits to decrease your reliance on your devices? I’d love to hear your experiences in the comments!
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