By now, most Americans are aware that cell phones are addictive. The dopamine hits keep on coming, and huge numbers of Americans keep on getting the high those hits delivered. Social media users, the texting fanatics, news junkies and the rest of us, even those of us who only minimally slip that little device in our fingers, are all hooked.
“Don’t leave home without it” was an old slogan for American Express checks and cards. Today that same tagline applies to our phones. Nomophobia, or anxiety caused by leaving the cell phone at home or without access to wireless networks, runs rampant in all age groups.
Jonathan Haidt’s 2024 “The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness” became a best-seller and a must-read for parents for its insights into the horribly negative effects of smart phones on adolescents and teens. From sleep deprivation to perfectionism, from lower grades in school to stress and depression, Haidt makes the case that smart phones are a major reason for the ballooning rates of emotionally distraught teens.
Though less attention is paid to adults 20 years of age and up, the smart phone has brought a plague of ill effects to them as well. Attention spans shrink, precious time is wasted watching everything from porn to videos of kittens on YouTube, and a sense of constant urgency brought on by texts, calls, and online posts burns up energy and leaves exhaustion in its wake.
A case in point: I’m 74 years old and am not on social media, but my work requires — or so I like to tell myself — daily doses of news and commentary. Taken throughout the day, these dopamine visits add up to two or three hours clicking through articles. The result? I’m more easily distracted than I once was, I read fewer books than I once did, and I think and worry far more than ever over events far beyond my powers of control. Keep in mind that Facebook or TikTok are foreign to me, and my phone receives fewer than 15 calls and texts a day. In short, I’m a digital wimp compared to most of my fellow Americans, yet still in some respects a slave to the digital world.
In her latest book, “The Unplugged Hours: Cultivating a Life of Presence in a Digitally Connected World,” writer and online coach and educator Hannah Brencher offers a way to bring this thief of time and energy under control.
Several years ago, on her 33rd birthday, while her husband Lane and her young daughter were laughing together inside the Florida house where they were all visiting a friend, Brencher sat by herself, sipping coffee and trying to set goals for the year, which was a birthday tradition for her. “And that’s when I felt it. A gentle nudge in my spirit seemed to come out of nowhere, impressing me with four words: Turn off your phone.”
That nudge launched Brencher onto a project: living 1,000 hours in a year with her phone turned off. She made up a paper tracker of a thousand tiny bubbles, which can be found in her book and at her website hannahbrenchercreative.com, and set out to go phone-free, starting one hour at a time and then building hours from there.
Before setting off on this odyssey, Brencher found herself living a life of “constant connectedness.” Since college, she had pushed herself hard, always on the run from one project to the next, a list-maker extraordinaire, busy, busy, busy. She felt a “Growing Disconnect” with friends and even her husband — but like so many other people she knew, she regarded this as a normal consequence of racing through the day with her phone at her side.
In other words, Brencher understands and sympathizes with hard-core phone users, and offers some great tips for cutting back on time spent on devices. If you can’t face an hour without your phone, for example, then try half an hour. Before shutting off the phone, make a list of chores you hope to complete or pleasures you hope to pursue when you’re phone-free. Don’t get down on yourself when you fail to meet your expectations. Get back on your feet and keep plugging away at becoming unplugged.
The rewards for these efforts may surprise you. In Brencher’s case, she found herself more present in the lives of her daughter and husband. She learned to enjoy the more abundant quiet hours in her life as she broke from the distractions of the phone. She noted that “I watched as my hurried language changed from ‘I don’t have enough time’ to ‘I’ve had the great gift of time — and it has been enough for me.’”
And so she advises readers, “There will always be new advances and new temptations to plunge deeper into digital connectivity. But you get to decide when enough is enough. You get to set the pace for your own life. You can slow things down. You can find your own rhythm.”
If you’re looking for some help reducing your phone time, or if you just want to read about a woman who struggled and triumphed in the battle of the phone, pick up a copy of “The Unplugged Hours.”
(Jeff Minick reviews books and has written four of his own: two novels, “Amanda Bell” and “Dust On Their Wings,” and two works of nonfiction, “Learning As I Go” and “Movies Make the Man.” minick0301@gmail.com.)