Welcome to the February Phone Breakup
It's not you. It's your phone.
Hi everyone!
Welcome to the February Phone Breakup, an opportunity for everyone (myself included) to take part in a playful group experiment, based on my book How to Break Up With Your Phone. The goal is to reset our relationships with our devices and, in so doing, reduce our anxiety and burnout, improve our attention spans and memory, increase our sense of presence, and help us reconnect with the world around us—not to mention the people who matter the most to us in life.
What does it mean to “break up” with your phone?
As I explained in last week’s newsletter, 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. After all, phones are useful—and by this point, often essential. 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 is to transform your phone from a temptation to a tool.
So let’s get started.
Step 1: What is something that you say you want to do, try, or get better at, but that you can’t seem to find the time for?
Don’t think too hard — pick the first thing that came to mind and leave it in the comments. Bonus points if you ask yourself roughly how much time per week you think this thing would take.
Note: if you’re trying to get better at something, I suggest identifying the minimum amount of time it would take to suck less at it—I find that to be a useful way to lower the stakes and identify the minimum amount of time that would make a positive difference. (I got this “suck less” idea from the brilliant
, who posted this image on his Substack.)
For me personally, I can identify three things: I’d like to finally learn the frets on the top three strings of the guitar, get better at sight-reading music on the piano, and increase my drumming speed. I would definitely suck less at all three of these things if I were to spend just one hour a week on each.
2: Take Stock of Your Current Phone Habits
Before we try to change anything, let’s see where we are right now. (If these polls aren’t working on your device, just jot down your answers for yourself.)
Next, let’s do something potentially terrifying: go into Screen Time on iPhones or the Dashboard of Digital Wellbeing on Androids and find the answers to the following questions.
In Digital Wellbeing, simply tap the chart; in Screen Time, you’ll need to give it a second to do its calculations and then, once it’s shown you what’s likely to be a horrifying number, you can take a deep breath and tap on “see all activity.” That will bring you to a dashboard where you can scroll down to find this information on time, notifications and pickups.
Step 3: Take a deep breath.
What you just discovered might have horrified you. But if not, here’s a super-fun Phone Time Calculator (based on being awake for 16 hours per day) that totally won’t freak you out at all:
1 hour per day = roughly 15 full days per year, about 6% of your waking life
2 hours per day = roughly 30 full days per year, about 13% of your waking life
3 hours per day = roughly 45 full days per year, just under 20% of your waking life
4 hours per day = roughly 60 full days per year, about 25% of your waking life
5 hours per day = roughly 76 full days per year, more than 30% of your waking life
Whoah, right! (And as a side note, according to the best stats I could find when writing How to Break Up With Your Phone — which mind you, was in the pre-Tik Tok dark ages of 2016-17 — the average person was spending four hours a day on their phones. Not their screens in total; just their phones.)
Now, granted a lot of our screen time is useful or enjoyable — and there is no reason to beat yourself up over listening to a podcast that you love, or keeping google maps open for three hours while you’re driving someplace, or using your phone to actually talk to a friend.
But still: even if you were to give yourself the benefit of the doubt and assume that half of your screen time is useful, enjoyable or necessary, I bet you still have at least several hours per week (if not day!) that you could reclaim — and perhaps use on whatever you just told me you care about but don’t have time for. (See what I did there? I’m sorry. It was a little mean.)
And also, pay attention to the number and frequency of your notifications and pickups. If you are picking up your phone 50 times a day (which would be relatively low) and you’re awake for 16 hours a day, you’re being interrupted more than three times an hour. If you’re receiving, say, 75 notifcations a day (again, that’s probably low, especially given how many people allow notifications from email), that’s almost five interruptions per hour.
In other words, of course you feel frazzled, distracted, burned out, exhausted, and like you have no time for the things you claim to care about: your time is being shredded into what Brigid Schulte calls “time confetti.”
And guess what? It’s your phone’s fault.
What to do today: Write a breakup letter to your phone
I’m serious. I want you to pretend that your phone is an actual person that you’re in a relationship with, and I want you to write it a breakup letter. This button will lead you to more detailed instructions, and a place to post your letter:
(Some of you may recall that the prologue of How to Break Up With Your Phone is a breakup letter—I’ve pasted it below for inspiration.)
And that’s it! I’ll be in touch later this week to explain why I just had you do that and to share a simple exercise I’ve found to be extremely helpful.
As always, feel free to invite others to join us — and I can’t wait to read your letters!
To scrolling less and living more,
Fun Squad Members: Check out the Phone Breakup Forum
As I mentioned, I’ve created a special thread for Fun Squad members where you can ask me questions directly about anything related to screen time and phone breakups (and get to know other Fun Squad members). I’d truly love to hear from you so please, don’t be shy.
PS: I’m realizing that there is no way I’ll be able to walk us through all 30 days of my breakup plan without seriously clogging your inboxes and potentially making half of you unsubscribe. If you do want a more step-by-step guided approach, I have a 30-day phone breakup course and digital resources, such as a printable workbook that I designed to accompany the book. You certainly do not need either of these things in order to participate in and get something out of our February Phone Breakup, but I wanted to be sure you knew about them, in case you think they’d be helpful. All “How to Feel Alive” subscribers can use the code FEELALIVE for a 10% discount; Fun Squad members get 25% off (you’ll get a code in your welcome email).
And now. . . .
My original breakup letter:
Dear Phone,
I still remember the first time we met. You were an expensive new gadget available only through AT&T; I was a person who could recite her best friends’ phone numbers from memory. When you were launched, I’ll admit that your touch screen caught my eye. But I was too busy trying to type a text message on my flip phone to start something new.
Then I held you in my hand, and things started moving fast. It wasn’t long before we were doing everything together: taking walks, having lunch with friends, going on vacations. At first it seemed strange that you wanted to come with me to the bathroom—but today it’s just another formerly private moment for us to share.
We’re inseparable now, you and I. You’re the last thing I touch before I go to bed and the first thing I reach for in the morning. You remember my doctors’ appointments, my shopping lists, and my anniversary. You provide GIFs and festive emoji that I can send to friends on their birthdays, so that rather than feeling hurt that I’m texting instead of calling, they think, “Ooh, animated balloons!” You make it possible for my avoidance strategies to be construed as thoughtfulness, and for this I am grateful.
Phone, you are amazing. I mean that literally: not only do you allow me to travel across time and space, but I am amazed by how many nights I’ve stayed up three hours past my bedtime staring at your screen. I can’t count the times we’ve gone to bed together and I’ve had to pinch myself to see if I’m dreaming—and believe me, I want to be dreaming, because ever since we met, something seems to be messing with my sleep. I cannot believe all of the gifts you’ve given me, even though many of those gifts are technically things that I bought for myself online while you and I were “relaxing” in a bath.
Thanks to you, I never need to worry about being alone. Any time I’m anxious or upset, you offer an email or news story or dog video to distract me from my feelings. And how about boredom? Before we met, I’d often find myself with no way to pass the time other than to daydream, or maybe think. There were even times when I’d get into an elevator and have nothing to look at but the other passengers. For six floors!
These days, I can’t even remember the last time I was bored. Then again, I can’t remember a lot of things. Like, for example, the last time my friends and I made it through a meal without anyone pulling out a phone. Or how it felt to be able to read an entire magazine article in one sitting. Or what I said in the paragraph above this one. Or whose text I was looking at right before I walked into that pole.
Or whatever. My point is, I feel like I can’t live without you.
And that’s why it’s so hard for me to tell you that we need to break up.
Knitting! I want to spend part of each evening knitting. Minimum 15 mins
I do more on my laptop than on my phone, but they both take away from the time I'd like to spend reading more. One simple switch I made was to start wearing a watch again -- no need to pick up my phone to check the time (and anything else; I do keep it on silent) when I can glance at my wrist.