I Tried Living Without a Smartphone for 30 Days–Here’s What Happened

 

I made the decision around midnight. That’s when I noticed the clock while scrolling Instagram for a “few minutes” before bed. Nearly two hours had passed.

“Enough!” I said, for the umpteenth time, and vowed to make a clean sweep.

Social media was just part of the problem.

On a given day, I was also checking three messaging apps, half a dozen news sites, YouTube, live sports scores, and good old-fashioned email—all three accounts. Television had become something I listened to while trolling for news, gossip, or cat videos.

My attention was no longer my own, and I wanted it back.

So I bought a flip phone, put my smartphone in a drawer, and set my internal clock to 2006, the year before the iPhone was released.