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Molly Elwood, a copywriter in Portland, Oregon, started using a screen-time monitoring app earlier this year and was unnerved when she discovered she was on her phone 11 hours in one day. Once, she couldn’t get off the Instagram/Facebook/Twitter/e-mail merry-go-round while riding in the passenger seat during a road trip and ended up carsick.

Tiffani Patel, a massage therapist, yoga instructor, and personal chef in Austin, Texas, knew she needed to make a change when she realized she was choosing Instagram over her dog Forrest, a mutt she says is “85 pounds of love.”

“What am I doing?” she thought. “There’s a live, beautiful animal in my home, and he’s not going to be around forever.” She got rid of social media apps.

Catherine Price, a writer in Philadelphia, browsed eBay for Victorian-era door knobs instead of paying attention to her newborn baby during a feeding. When she finally glanced at her daughter’s face — illuminated by the blueish light of a phone screen and looking at her mama — Price’s heart sank, and she realized it was time to make a change. She ended up writing a book called How to Break Up With Your Phone.

“Changing your relationship with your phone can have effects that are surprisingly profound,” Price says. “I’m a happier person, and that came directly from changing my relationship with the metal rectangle in my pocket. I thought it would be just better time management.”

Coincidentally, Patel, Elwood, and Price all took up the guitar after breaking up with their phones. They had the time all along; it was just getting sucked by a small, shiny screen. How much time? According to screen-time tracking app Moment, the average user of the app picks up his or her phone 52 times a day and spends 3 hours, and 57 minutes using it. And those are people who have chosen to track their screen time.

Overcoming a smartphone addiction — and yes, many experts consider compulsively checking your phone a behavioral addiction, similar to gambling — has the potential to improve your relationships, sleep, physical fitness, and mental health.

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Zac Freeland/Vox

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