Behavioral Changes

Start by noticing

Before changing anything, spend a few days just noticing when you pick up your phone: where you are, and what you were feeling or putting off right before. Tracking alone rarely cuts how much you use it, but it shows you which of the changes below will fit you.

On average, cutting back helps a little, and mostly while you keep it up. People who pick their own changes do better than people given a target, and fixed limits like 30 minutes a day are almost never kept. So start with one or two of these, not all six.

Reaching for your phone is usually a way of dealing with a feeling: boredom, a hard moment, worry, loneliness. It helps to be curious about that part of you, rather than treat it as the enemy. Scolding yourself and setting strict rules tends to fall apart on a bad day.

While you're noticing, write down two things: the feeling in one word, next to where you were, and one line on what you'd want to do with the time you get back. The six changes below are about your surroundings, like where the phone is and when you use it. Further down are a few practices for the moment the urge comes.

Charge your phone outside the bedroomFor: scrolling in bed, which is linked to worse sleep.

How

Pick one spot outside the bedroom and charge your phone there every night. Get an alarm clock first, since the alarm is the main reason phones stay by the bed.

What we know

Large surveys link screen time in bed to insomnia and shorter sleep. The trials are small: one found people slept better without their phone in the last half hour before bed; another, which measured sleep with wrist trackers, found no difference. Most people who tried it wanted to keep doing it. It's an easy thing to try, not a cure.

How it goes wrong

Without an alarm clock, the phone ends up back by the bed. Or you go get it twenty minutes later. One small exception, like a podcast to fall asleep to, slowly brings everything else back.

If you need to stay reachable

Keep it out of reach but where you can hear it, and let calls from a few people ring through.

In practice

Helen Fields, one of Catherine Price's test readers, now charges her phone in the living room. By the bed, she keeps an old phone with nothing on it but sleep sounds.

Sources: Hjetland et al. 2025 · Duraccio et al. 2021 · Fields's account

Set times to checkFor: checking for reassurance, and the fear of missing something important.

How

Let messages from people come through, and move every other notification to two or three set times a day. Tell your loved ones when you check, and how to reach you if something's urgent.

What we know

In a 237-person trial, getting notifications three times a day improved attention and mood, and lowered stress. In another trial, turning them all off didn't reduce checking, and made people more anxious about missing out. What seems to help is knowing when you'll catch up, not cutting everything off. No study has followed people past a few weeks.

How it goes wrong

Turning off every notification and feeling disconnected. Checking out of habit, even when nothing new has come in.

If you need to stay reachable

Only delay notifications from apps, not from people.

In practice

Jake Knapp tells colleagues to expect slower replies, and to call if something's urgent. He says it cost him his reputation for fast email, and he's kept it anyway.

Sources: Fitz et al. 2019 · Liu et al. 2025 · Knapp, twelve years in

Make distracting apps harder to openFor: seeing an app and opening it without thinking.

How

Pick the two or three apps that are hardest to put down. Delete them from your phone, or only use them on a computer at set times. Clear your home screen. Use limits that take more than one tap to undo, ideally with a passcode someone else keeps. Decide ahead of time which exceptions you'll allow, and write them down.

What we know

These changes have the strongest evidence. In trials, limits people couldn't easily undo, and small sets of changes people picked for themselves, cut phone time by close to an hour a day. The effect on how people felt was small. Grayscale cut some minutes, but not how often people unlocked their phone.

How it goes wrong

A block that's easy to turn off on a bad day. Moving to the laptop without noticing. Deleting an app and reinstalling it hours later, which nearly everyone does at some point.

If you need to stay reachable

Keep the apps you need for health, safety and accessibility, and remove the rest.

In practice

One man on r/dumbphones wrote about a year of slipping back. Grayscale, a minimal home screen and deleting apps each got undone after a rough day.

Sources: Allcott et al., NBER · Olson et al. 2022 · Dekker et al. 2024 · The r/dumbphones post

Plan what you'll do insteadFor: what's underneath the habit, like boredom, a hard task, loneliness or a low mood.

How

Use what you noticed. Take the two moments you reach for your phone most, and write down what you'll do instead: "When I'm waiting in line, I'll…", not "When I'm waiting in line, I won't…". Match it to the feeling behind the reach: something absorbing for empty moments, a short break away from screens when work gets hard, a call or a standing plan when you're lonely, something that calms your body when you're wound up. For a low mood, pick the smallest version of something that used to feel good, like a ten-minute walk or reading one page. Do it where the scrolling usually goes, before you feel like it; your mood tends to follow. If your hands want something to do, give them something to hold.

What we know

This is the least tested idea here, and probably the most important. In research on snacking habits, "do this instead" plans weakened the habit, while "don't do it" plans made it stronger. Smokers taught to ride out cravings still had them, but smoked less. Planning activities is a well-tested treatment for low mood, though not for phone use, and keeping your hands busy comes from treatment for nail biting and hair pulling. In one program for internet overuse, hobbies and relationships were the hardest things to get back, so it's worth planning for them rather than waiting. None of this has been tested on phones yet.

How it goes wrong

Taking the phone away and putting nothing in its place. Several people a year in say having nothing to do is what sent them back to it.

Worth knowing

If you mostly use your phone to get through low mood or anxiety, that's worth getting help with on its own. The phone may have been covering it up. See when to get support.

In practice

Kevin Roose took pottery classes while cutting his phone time from about five and a half hours a day to just over one. He called it a partial recovery, and one he has to keep an eye on.

Sources: Adriaanse et al. 2011 · Bowen & Marlatt 2009 · Roose's account · Ekers et al. 2014 · Bate et al. 2011 · Young 2013

Phones away when you're with peopleFor: being present with people, and having others hold you to it.

How

Pick one time you spend with people, like dinner, a weekly meal with friends, or your first hour home. Agree on the rule together. Stack the phones, put them in a basket, or leave them in another room.

What we know

Of the rules about where your phone goes, this one is the best tested. In a field experiment with over 300 diners, people with phones on the table felt more distracted and enjoyed the meal less. Parents asked to use their phones a lot at a science museum felt less connected to their kids. No study has compared a group agreement with doing it on your own.

How it goes wrong

You're the only one who wants it, or friends push back. Start with one person who wants it too.

If you need to stay reachable

Leave it face down in another room, with the ringer on.

In practice

The Offline Club in Amsterdam collects phones at the door for two-hour evenings. It started with about 30 people in a café, and grew to about 350 in a church.

Sources: Dwyer, Kushlev & Dunn 2018 · Offline Club, Euronews

Plan a longer breakFor: feeling the difference for yourself, and getting used to less.

How

Once the smaller changes feel normal, try a set amount of time without your phone. Start with errands, then a half day, then a full day or a set offline time each week. Beforehand, tell people how to reach you, decide on one exception, and plan what you'll do with the time. Afterwards, only bring an app back if you have a reason, and a rule for how you'll use it.

What we know

On average, short breaks from the phone entirely make little or no difference to well-being, and use creeps back up afterwards. In a 619-person trial, cutting one hour a day lasted longer than a week off. The case for weekly offline days comes from the people who started them and have kept them up for years, not from trials.

How it goes wrong

Starting too big. A first try that goes wrong, like a friend running late and no way to call them. No plan for which apps come back after.

If you need to stay reachable

Aim for a number of offline hours each week, instead of one fixed day.

In practice

Tiffany Shlain has kept a screen-free day, from Friday dinner to Saturday evening, for over 11 years. Her family keeps a landline for emergencies, and guests get an email beforehand with the address and a reminder.

Sources: Brailovskaia et al. 2022 · Castelo et al. 2025 · Shlain's practice

When the urge comes

These are six short practices borrowed from therapy. Four are for the moment you feel the urge, and two are for later, once you're calm. Only the first has been tested on phones; the rest come from research on smoking, anxiety and other habits. Done briefly, they're safe for most people to try on their own.

In the first few days, expect to reach for your phone a lot. The urge usually passes in 15 to 20 minutes. Around weeks four to six, many people feel lonelier as casual texting drops off. The people who got through it filled that time intentionally, with calls, letters and plans.

Some of that time will move to your laptop. That's still progress, as long as the laptop stays out of bed and off the table. If anxiety shows up once the phone isn't there to escape into, that isn't failure; for some people, the phone was covering it up. New routines take about two months to feel automatic, and missing a day doesn't reset anything.

When it slips

One slip can easily turn into “I've already blown it, so why stop.” Being hard on yourself doesn't help the way it seems like it should. In small experiments, people who were kind to themselves after failing tried harder to improve. In recovering drinkers, visible shame predicted relapse.

So after a slip, say what happened plainly: “I scrolled for an hour.” Remember it's extremely common, partly because these apps are designed for it. Talk to yourself the way a kind friend would, then pick the next small step, not a stricter rule. Use the slip to learn something: what were you feeling, and what was going on?

Most people slip after something specific, like a trip, a family crisis or a hard week, followed by a “temporary” return to the full phone. Plan for it before it happens: what you'll bring, which apps go back on, and the date they come off again. Jake Knapp puts email back on his phone for trips and deletes it when he's home. Reinstalling and deleting again is normal, even years in.

The research on being kind to yourself comes from studying, eating and drinking, not phones. It works as something you keep practicing, not a one-time change in attitude.

Sources: Lally et al. 2010 · Katie Lowe, one year in · Knapp · Breines & Chen 2012 · Adams & Leary 2007 · Randles & Tracy 2013

When to get support

For most people, this is a habit, not an addiction, and habits can change. But sometimes the phone is how someone is coping with something heavier, and that deserves real care.

It's worth talking to someone if, for two weeks or more, your mood has been low or empty, or you've lost interest in most things, nearly every day. Or if worry or panic is running your days and the phone is your main relief. Or if you had trouble paying attention long before you had your phone. Or if you mostly use your phone to keep painful memories away, most of your contact with people happens through it, or things keep getting worse even though you've really tried.

Sources: NIMH on depression · Anderson & Wood 2025