Announcing the February Phone Breakup

Do you need better screen/life balance? Join the club.

Hi friends,

Congratulations to everyone who participated in the January Funtervention. I hope that it inspired you to think differently about fun and to prioritize playfulness, connection and flow in your everyday life.

In honor of February (i.e. the shortest and often coldest and darkest month of the year), I’ve decided to apply the playful attitude of the Funtervention to something that I know many people are struggling with right now (including myself): screen time.

And so welcome to the latest “How to Feel Alive” experiment:

The February Phone Breakup Challenge

As many of you know, I’m the founder of Screen/Life Balance and the author of How to Break Up With Your Phone. I’ve spent nearly ten years thinking and writing about our relationships with technology (and creating courses and resources to help), and have done hundreds of talks and media appearances in front of all sorts of audiences about how we can—and why we should—rethink our relationships with our screens. (Indeed, many of you are probably here from the “Reset Your Brain” newsletter series from The Guardian that I coached.) My own phone breakup process is what led me to rediscover the importance of fun and inspired me to start this Substack newsletter. I’m passionate about sharing what I’ve learned and helping people create healthy and sustainable long-term relationships with their devices.

This feels like a particularly good time to stage a group phone breakup because to be totally candid with you, I feel like my own screen time is out of balance these days. (It was a tough January.) I figure that if I’m in need of a reset, you might be, too.

Here’s how it’ll work:

Each week, I’ll send out an email to all of you with ideas and resources that I’ve found important or useful, plus stories from other people’s phone breakup attempts, including my own. The goal, as always, will be to share a laugh (usually at my expense) while also offering practical, evidence-backed strategies for you to try yourself.

If that’s all you feel like engaging with right now, great: no need to do anything else. I promise to try to make it fun and interesting even if you’re already perfectly happy with your screen/life balance.

For those of you who would like more, I’ll also include bonus material and features for Fun Squad members (i.e. paid subscribers), such as:

• Detailed weekly assignments (in other words, your “To-dos for the day”)

• Potentially embarrassing videos of me explaining the week’s assignments and attempting to show you my own systems for screen/life balance

• Printable worksheets and prompts

• Access to the Fun Squad Forum, as well as weekly community discussion threads, where you can interact with each other, share experiences, set goals, ask for advice, and directly ask questions of me (and other community members — we’ll brainstorm together!)

• Recommendations (and, when I can get them, discounts) for products or services that I’ve personally found useful in helping create better screen/life balance

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We’ll get started in earnest this coming Monday. If you want to get a head start between now and then, recruit some friends or family members to join you (you can use the share link below), and find or buy yourself a standalone alarm clock. (It doesn’t need to be fancy.)

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Also, over the weekend, try to notice when you reach for your phone on auto-pilot, and pay attention to how you feel before and after you spend time on it. The more aware you are of your own habits and how they make you feel, the easier it will be to change them.

To scrolling less and living more—and having a group of playful, compassionate people who support you,

Catherine Price

PS: Keep reading for answers to some FAQ, as well as some articles, interviews and podcasts that I hope will give you a better sense of why the heck you should trust me.

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FAQ:

What amazing things might happen to me if I “break up” with my phone?

I can’t predict exactly what will happen for you, but I can tell you that for me, “breaking up” with my phone has changed my life for the better in more ways than I ever could have anticipated. (And I’ve heard from thousands of people around the world who have had similar experiences.)

Personally, before I wrote How to Break Up With My Phone, I could barely read (let alone write) a paragraph before reaching for a distraction, and I was allowing my phone to interfere with some of my most important relationships (for example, with my daughter).

These days, my focus and memory (and sleep!) are better, my stress and anxiety are lower, and I’m much more present in my relationships—not to mention in my life. Breaking up with my phone—and continually working to maintain a healthy relationship with my devices—is one of the most meaningful things I’ve ever done.

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Are you suggesting that I throw my phone under a bus?

Do not worry: no phones will be harmed or destroyed in this breakup challenge! Just as “breaking up” with a person doesn’t mean you’re swearing off all future human relationships, “breaking up with your phone” doesn’t mean you’re never going to use a smartphone again. It simply means taking a step back to create a new and healthier relationship with your phone — one that keeps the parts you like or need and reduces the parts that feel like a waste of time. The goal, in other words, is a relationship over which you have control.

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