Two and a half weeks ago, I listened to an episode of Cal Newport’s Deep Questions podcast that discussed an academic paper titled “Blocking Mobile Internet on Smartphones improves sustained attention, mental health, and subjective well-being.”
The paper found that after two weeks of removing internet from their phone, 91% of participants (!) saw improvements in mental health, subjective well-being, and ability to sustain attention. As Cal noted in his intro, if there was a pill that did all of this in two week’s time, that pill would be a “blockbuster.”
The episode is worth a listen (or, if you’re feeling particularly academic, read the paper). As someone how has long been suspicious of what constant connectivity is doing to us, this paper was all I needed to hear to try this out myself.
As the abstract of the paper notes (bold is mine): “These results provide causal evidence that blocking mobile internet can improve important psychological outcomes, and suggest that maintaining the status quo of constant connection to the internet may be detrimental to time use, cognitive functioning, and well-being.”
Yikes.
My Starting Point
There’s one important thing to get out of the way. As a stay at home parent, I am not required to live in the world the same way as most people. I don’t need to reply to work emails at all hours of the day and I don’t have to constantly check into a slack account where people send water cooler memes and emergency work updates in the same thread. Social media has been long gone from my phone and save for a few exceptions, my life.
I’m supposed to say that the best part of staying at home during these few years is the endless quality time I get to spend with my kids. That’s obviously true. But being able to opt out of constant work connectivity has been such a positive that I don’t exactly know how I’ll do going back.
Yet, the low-grade internet/phone addiction that we all suffer from is something that I’ve still struggled with. I’ll find myself checking in on things like this newsletter, sports scores, the news, Zillow, and of course, the never-ending rabbit hole of googling random questions. I’ve learned that if you build the internet in my pocket, they (I) will come.
What I Did
As Cal notes, completely removing the internet from your phone is typically unworkable. You may need Park Mobile, like Werner Herzog in order to park in your techno-optimist municipality. Or you may need two factor authentication, so that instead of doing your job, you can spend 20 minutes entering passwords.
He instead suggests to “block narrowly”. Meaning, leave the apps that enable you to “function practically in the world,” and remove all apps that incentivize you to spend more time on them. Specifically apps for social media, news, and games.
The Internet-Enabled Apps I Removed/Blocked from my Phone:
What I Kept
Notes on Roadblocks I Encountered
During the first week, there were a number of occasions in which I instinctively went to use my phone as a boredom pacifier—to check sports scores or Zillow, or to look up random info. After an initial pang of frustration, the feeling passed. Now over two weeks in, that urge to constantly “check” has lessened considerably.
On a few occasions, people sent me articles and videos that I couldn’t open. Instead of telling them I no longer had internet on my phone (a whole thing), I either ignored the link or waited until I was on my computer. At one point my wife texted me a link to AirBnBs, and I nicely told her how annoying I now am and that this is the person she chose to live with.
Last weekend during the northeast rain marathon, we decided to take our girls (2.5 and 1 years old) to a mall 30 minutes away. We got there on Sunday at 10am, only to find out that it opens at 12 on Sundays. (Sidenote, what kind of capitalist cathedral opens late on Sundays?). Had I still had internet on my phone, it’s very possible I would have checked the hours at some point. We instead drove 10 minutes to Costco, and our 2.5 year-old was even happier.
At one point, I needed to download the YouTube app on my father-in-law’s TV so my daughter could watch Daniel Tiger while our younger daughter napped. The only way YouTube would let me sign in was if I solved their 7 step riddle, which involved QR codes and logging into my smartphone. Luckily my wife was there so I used her phone. Had my wife not been around, I either would’ve had to unblock safari or tell my daughter that Daniel Tiger was sleeping. Moments like this are the ones that make me realize how utterly helpless and dependent we are on this stuff.
An Important Caveat
There are many instances of things nowadays that require one to take a picture with your phone and then email it somewhere. To get around this, I am using our family iPad.
Final Thoughts
As of right now, I have no plans on re-installing Internet and am convinced that this is a better way to live. At this current moment, not being able to do things anytime I want feels more freeing than being able to do everything at all times. I agree with the paper’s suggestion that “maintaining the status quo of constant connection to the internet may be detrimental to time use, cognitive functioning, and well-being.”
No mobile internet has definitely made me a better parent, in that I am significantly less likely to be a zombie at the park. I don’t feel pulled elsewhere as much. I haven’t actually measured this, but I’m sure that my sustained attention has improved.
I’ve long done many things to try and make my phone less alluring, but this is far and away the most effective. There are only so many times you can look at text messages.
Similar (but also not at all similar) to when individuals get sober from drug or alcohol problems, removing the boredom pacifier means that you are now much more fully confronted with yourself. In some cases this can make life more difficult, as you have to face who you are as a person head on. As our friend Daniel Tiger says, “you can change your hair or what you wear but no matter what you do, you’re still you.”
I do think this is hard to do without a spouse, roommate, or someone else with a full internet-accessed smartphone. There are too many things in the modern world that demand you hook your brain up to the internet machine. And I’m writing this before Elon Musk’s neural chips have hit the market.
Taking internet off of your phone means that you are actively swimming against the tide of the implied beats of 2020s life. Already, I’m sensing that it’s a choice that you for some reason need to sheepishly justify in the presence of most people. But it feels like I’m swimming to a beautiful beach with pristine sand and dazzling blue water, as opposed to the one with garbage littered everywhere.
Weekly News and Notes
I enjoyed this interview with sportswriter Kevin Van Valkenberg on Dad Mag. Kevin has older kids (than me) and it was a very interesting reading about the balance between being there for your kids and family while balancing your personal aspirations, and settling the discrepancies that your kids won’t grow up exactly the same as you did.
I am accepting submissions for the Bill Simmons-style parenting/dad mailbag, which had been recommended by a subscriber. If you have any questions you’d like to be featured, simply reply to this article or use the contact form.
We’ve gotten a fair amount of new subscribers over the past few weeks. Thank you everyone who is new here. If you have thoughts, comments, suggestions, or recommendations, don’t hesitate to leave a comment or send over an email.
10K Steps is a Myth. Try This Instead (From Simple.life)
Lasting weight loss doesn’t come from extreme diets—it comes from small daily habits that fit your life. This science-backed approach has already helped users lose over 20 million pounds. Take the quiz to get your personalized plan, build sustainable routines, and stay motivated with daily accountability and expert guidance.
1 Trello is a personal planning app that I use to run my life. Not having this on my phone is an inconvenience, but it’s also one less thing that attracts me to my phone. I’ve bought a small pocket notebook that I typically carry around with me. If I don’t have my notebook, I’ll text myself.
2 While Notes doesn’t use the internet, I don’t want my phone to host a repository of information that I go to. Again, I use the pocket notebook or text myself.
3 The original intention of the iPhone was to have an iPod and phone on the same device, and I am honoring this intention.
4 I dislike the reality that we are actively atrophying one of our strongest skills as a species, but I now have young kids and am still somewhat new to Westchester County, NY. For now it stays, but reluctantly.
5 This is an app meant for families to plan stuff; it’s our shared digital calendar, various grocery and shopping lists, and a few other things. It’s $39 a year. I’d recommend it.
6 My phone acts as one of several white noise machine to (allegedly) ensure that our girls don’t wake each other up in the night. It’s by far the phone’s most important use at the moment.