How to Breakup with your phone when you still need it for unpaid labor
This month, we talked to Catherine Price, author of How to Break Up With Your Phone, about how phones impact our relationships with others and our children’s development.
How can breaking up with our phones improve our relationships and connections?
I should probably start by explaining what I mean by “breaking up” with your phone, since that’s one of the most common questions that people ask me when I tell them I wrote a book called How to Break Up With Your Phone!
Breaking up with your phone doesn't mean getting rid of it entirely; it means creating a healthier relationship with it—one in which you keep what you love about your phone and minimize what you don’t. In other words, it's like going from an obsessive romance where you're constantly craving the person and can't bear to be apart to just being friends.
Ultimately, “breaking up” with your phone is not about spending less time on your phone. It’s about spending more time on your life—and, for that matter, your relationships.
In fact, one of the main benefits of breaking up with your phone is that it improves your in-person relationships! The most obvious way it does so is by making us more present. We’ve all had the unpleasant experience of being “phubbed” — phone-snubbed — where someone pulls out their phone in the middle of a conversation. One of the goals of the book’s 30-day plan is to help people get into the habit of keeping their phones away when they’re interacting with other people. This, in turn, will help you feel closer and more seen and heard.
One of the ironies that really gets to me personally is that social media, in particular, is marketed as a way to connect with other people—and many people do make friends or find an online community through it. But all too often, social media leaves us feeling even more alone; we can end up with thousands of followers but no actual friends. Not only does this feel terrible, but it’s bad for our physical health: the strength of our relationships is one of the top predictors of our longevity, and the health risks of loneliness and isolation are comparable to those of smoking fifteen (yes, fifteen!) cigarettes per day. One of the most fundamental reasons that social media use can contribute to loneliness is simply that time is zero-sum: if you spend it on one thing, you can’t spend it on something else. This means that if you’re spending hours a day “connecting” with people on social media, you’ll have fewer hours available to nurture your in-person relationships or to connect with new people in real life.
What’s more, you’ll probably have less energy to do so—which in turn will make it even more likely for you to try to soothe your loneliness by scrolling through social media. You might think you’re connecting with your friends when you do so, but according to former U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, that’s not the case. He wrote a great book called Together: The Healing Power of Human Connection in a Sometimes Lonely World. This passage stood out to me:
“It’s easy to passively scroll through our feed and see what friends are doing, or text for a quick update that creates the illusion we’re keeping up with our friends. It requires much more energy and time to make a date, get ready, and physically go out to meet those same friends. But before we know it, days, weeks, or months can go by without sincere or meaningful conversation. When that happens, it can feel like even harder work to see friends in person. But that interpersonal work delivers social benefits that the illusion of online friendship rarely does.”
Long story short: when you break up with your phone, you end up with more time and energy for your in-person relationships—and you end up less distracted and more present when you’re spending time with the people you love!
Which statistics and research surrounding a phone’s impact on mental health surprised you the most?
The most astounding thing to me is simply the amount of time we’re spending on our smartphones. According to the most recent stats I can find, the average adult is spending more than four hours a day on their phones. That’s more than a quarter of our waking lives!
I was also shocked by a recent Harris poll that found that even though many teenagers are spending upwards of 5 hours a day on social media, nearly half of them wish that some of the most popular platforms, such as TikTok and Twitter/X, had never even been invented. I guess that’s not an effect on mental health per se, but it’s very surprising to me that people are spending that much time (5 hours a day adds up to more than 76 full days a year) on platforms that, in some cases, they wish didn’t even exist. That shows just how trapped many teenagers feel: they don’t want to live their lives on social media, but they feel like they’ll be isolated if they don’t participate in it. That’s one of the many reasons I feel it’s so important for the parents of younger kids to join forces with other parents and agree to delay kids’ access to these things. We need to draw a line in the sand for them so that they have the option to choose a different way to live.
How do you recommend breaking up with your phone when you still need it for unpaid labor?
(ordering groceries, logging into school portals, checking kids through apps for attendance, scheduling playdates, home alarms, etc.)
Well, the first step is to set up a system to make sure that you are not the only person doing all the unpaid labor. (If only there were a book and card deck that could help you. . . . )
Next, take a moment to identify which of these tasks is essential, what exactly it involves, and when it needs to happen. I say this because it's very easy to have "mission creep," where you intend to just buy some decorations for your kid's birthday party, only to look up an hour later from a cake decorating Pinterest page and have no idea how you got there. In an ideal world, you'd have a system where you and your partner could have a regular schedule for when certain tasks need to be done (and that identifies who will do them) so that you only have to think about them for a limited time, once a week. For example, you could keep a running list of things you need to buy and then set aside 10 minutes on Sunday to place the order.
I'd also recommend trying to do as much as possible from a computer and getting into the habit of calling people instead of emailing or texting them. It's very easy, as we all know, to get sucked into a phone spiral, and it's also far less efficient to type with our thumbs (and more satisfying to hear someone's voice).
If you ARE going to use your phone, another tip I have is to use an app-blocking device like the Brick to transform your smartphone from a time-sucking temptation into a tool. (Here's a roundup of some of my favorite app blockers.) For example, let's say you wanted to take a break from your phone during the evening and over the weekend, but you felt you needed access to the apps you mentioned in the question. You could use the Brick to set up a schedule where you only have access to those particular apps and websites and you block everything else. It's a great way to set limits for yourself without any willpower and get things done efficiently without getting sucked into your phone.
Are there ways that I can use my phone in a healthy, helpful way to alleviate stress in my relationships?
I’m not sure if you mean this in the “Fair Play” sense – if so, I would say that yes, there are tools that can help you manage your Fair Play deck. For example, my husband and I often use an app called Trello to keep track of who is holding which card in any particular week (though we use it from our computers rather than our phones). I’ve also heard of people using apps like ToDoist for the same purpose.
More broadly speaking, though, I would say that smartphones are definitely major sources of stress in relationships – I often hear from people who are frustrated and hurt by their partner’s use of their phone (and their unwillingness to acknowledge that their use of their smartphone is hurting their partner). To those people I always say that, if you feel like your partner’s phone use is a problem in your relationship, then it IS a problem. End stop. We tend to act like it’s normal or okay for people to do things like pull out their phones in the middle of a romantic or family dinner, or bring their phones into bed with them. But in reality, it’s rude and, in many cases, really harmful to relationships.
One concrete suggestion I have is to schedule a regular phone-free evening with your partner or spouse: an evening when you both put your phones totally away (maybe even turn them off!) before dinner time and don’t interact with them again, at all, until the following morning. (Make sure you make some sort of fun plans ahead of time, so that it becomes something to look forward to, rather than dread.) Chances are the idea will make you and your partner (and family!) anxious at first – but you may end up enjoying the experience more than you anticipated. And if you find your partner hesitating, ask them to do it as a one-time experiment for you. You could always take an extra card for the week in return. (Kidding/not kidding? It depends on the card!) Then use the experience—or their resistance to it—as the spark for a conversation about both of your relationships with your phones, and how each of you feel when the other person is on their phone.
What actionable advice do you have for those of us navigating children/teens and phones?
Ha – well, that’s the million-dollar question! (And it’s a personal one, given that I have a 9-year-old.) Here goes:
Firmly believe that ideally, kids shouldn't have access to social media or full-on smartphones till they're at least 16. (If you're reading this and your kid already has these things, no judgment, though—we are in the midst of a giant recalibration when it comes to how we approach kids, smartphones, and social media.)
If your child does not yet have a smartphone or social media, my advice is to:
Delay smartphones for as long as possible (until at least high school, but ideally until at least 16)
Start with a family “loaner” phone
When it’s time for your kid to have their own phone, start with a smartphone alternative
No social media until at least 16
A bit more on the social media front: Former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy made an explicit call for there to be a warning label placed on social media platforms, akin to the warning label on cigarette boxes, and Jonathan Haidt lays out a compelling case against social media in his bestselling book, The Anxious Generation. (I agree with him so wholeheartedly on this that he and I have become official collaborators.) In addition to the opportunity costs of spending so much time on social media (the average US teenager is spending about five hours a day on social media!) parents should also be aware of the high likelihood that their children will be approached by predators online (this is also a risk with multi-player video games that have chat features). As the tech director at my own daughter's school recently put it, "If you want sexual predators and pedophiles to have direct access to your children, then by all means, get them a social media account."
If you've already given your kids smartphones or social media, don't despair. First, you can always walk things back — after all, you are likely the one paying for the smartphone and the data plan! Dr. Becky has a great, free PDF that helps parents explain to their children why they're establishing new boundaries with smartphones and social media (and helps parents feel more comfortable setting boundaries in general). If you don't feel up for a total reversal, I'd also recommend checking out my book, How to Break Up With Your Phone, which is all about how adults and older teens can create healthier relationships with their devices. I have a running list of resources for parents on my own Substack here.
The other thing I'd say is that parents worry that their kids will be left out if they don't have smartphones or social media. And that might be true . . . for now. But the only way that's going to change is if parents collectively take a stand. And I'd also recommend considering what the long-term consequences will be for our children if we don't take a stand—namely, that they'll end up living in a world in which no real life options are even available. I highly recommend watching this short talk by Sean Killingsworth, a young man who founded the Reconnect movement — I find it extremely powerful, and I've heard from people in Gen Z that this is an accurate description of their experience (and I'd be shocked to find any parent who WANTS this for their children!).
Catherine Price is the author of How to Break Up With Your Phone and the “How to Feel Alive” Substack newsletter.
Further reading:
How to call people out on their phone use in a non-confrontational way
Devices & apps that can help you tame your own phone habits
More ways to follow Catherine’s work:
Instagram: @catherinepriceofficial
LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/catherinepriceofficial
BlueSky: @catherine-price
TikTok: @catherinepriceofficial