Greg Bruce gives up his phone. At least he tries to.
I didn't want it to be meat or chocolate or coffee or anything else wonderful and life-affirming - I wasn't trying to be Jesus.
I wanted it to be something annoying and stupid, something I would be better off without, so I would come out the end of this not just with a story of suffering but with a story of suffering that ends with me having a better life. I ran through the possibilities but kept coming back to the same one, the obvious one, the impossible one.
I hate the way we use our phones because it shuts down possibilities beyond our phones. It says, I am not available to you right now. It says, I see many more interesting possibilities for me on this phone than I see in you, and the hardest thing about that statement is it's not wrong.
In the movie The Social Dilemma - which made us all reconsider our attachment to social media until the end credits, when we immediately reached for our phones to read every online review and assorted hot take - one expert tells a sort of joke about how addicted we are: "When do you check your phone in the morning? Is it before you pee or while you're peeing?" Seconds after waking up on the morning after watching the movie last year, I felt the familiar urge to reach for my phone but, still shaken by this "joke", denied myself. I continued to deny myself for several days afterwards, but before long I began to bargain with myself: "That guy's not my dad, he's not here, he'll never know, it's just a quick look" and before long, I was back to the old habits, looking not just before and during peeing, but also on the way to peeing, on the way to the kitchen for breakfast after peeing, while eating breakfast, while doing the breakfast dishes, and so on for the rest of the day and probably the rest of my life. Big deal. I don't have a problem. You have a problem.
A big part of what I have always hated about my phone use is that it makes me feel out of control. The desire to pull it out of my pocket, hold my thumbprint to the sensor, watch it spread its display of unlimited possibility before me - it's irresistible. I didn't want to be doing it but did it every few minutes anyway, while working, not working, doing things that required sustained focus, doing housework, playing with the kids. Most of the time there was nothing to see, partly because I checked it so often, and seeing there was nothing made me feel even worse. I felt a particularly great deal of self-loathing at the fact I knew many of the ways in which the phone companies manipulate us and how to stop them, but chose not to do so.
The best way to stop them is to stop using your phone.
My first issue was breakfast. I had fallen into a routine of checking personal and work email, news headlines, doing Wordle, then doing Globle, all while eating a large bowl of muesli. It was a time of purest personal indulgence and I felt it was necessary for me to start my day off on the right foot, emotionally-speaking. I was able to wake up, to pee, to walk to the kitchen without undue difficulty. In fact, it made me feel smug and self-righteous to have arrived at the breakfast bar without once looking at my phone, even though I had made sure it was in the pocket of my dressing gown. But when I sat down to eat, I quickly became bored beyond belief. My brain demanded stimulation, whining at me like a child: "Play with me!" I began to make arguments with myself for why I must be able to read my phone with breakfast: productivity, necessity for my job of staying informed etc, but I knew these arguments were just a cover for my addiction. It was tough, but I refused to give in and after a few days, I found a solution: Using my laptop.
"What are you doing on your computer?" Zanna said, when she came into the kitchen.
"Checking the news," I said indignantly. "I'm allowed to use my laptop."
"I'm just trying to help you on behalf of your readers, she said. They're going to feel cheated."
I knew she was right. From that point on, I only used my laptop when she wasn't around.
My second issue was the toilet, which is not just a place for ablutions but the place I do the majority of my self-care, the best place I know to find relief from my family and assorted obligations. Typically, I will retreat there for a few minutes during the chaos of the early morning, and again in the mid-morning, early afternoon, early evening, and assorted times in between. Sure, I'd seen the clickbait: "Using phone in toilet? Why you must stop" - Times of India. "Why You Absolutely Should Not Bring Your Cell Phone Into the Bathroom" - familyhandyman.com. "Your Cell Phone Is 10 Times Dirtier Than a Toilet Seat" - Time. I didn't dispute the headlines but I found them annoying and patronising. Anyway, lots of places are dirtier than toilet seats, including our own butts, which are just inches from the places we usually store our phones. I started taking my laptop into the toilet.
My third issue was the car, where I would typically listen to podcasts or audiobooks. Whether or not this type of activity under the category of "phone use" is questionable, but because I was trying to be as faithful as possible to the spirit of the exercise, I chose not to do it. Instead, I tried to use driving as quiet, meditative time, focusing on my breath, allowing myself to just be, accepting myself for myself, feeling the unsaddling of the obligation to always be doing something. After a few days, though, that started getting really boring and I allowed myself to be won over by the argument that listening to things is not really phone use. After a few days of doing that, I started feeling guilty and stopped. Then I got bored again and re-started. And so on, for 40 days. Welcome to the inside of my mind.
What these examples show is that a phone is now many things, some of which - using Google Maps, getting an Uber, taking cute photos of your kids at the playground to send to your spouse - are now so crucial to our survival that to say you're not using your phone for 40 days is ludicrous. It's just a question of how little you can get away with. For instance, I'm a writer and, as I have repeatedly argued with Zanna over the past 40 days, Google Docs is the modern equivalent of pen and paper, so if I'm using Google Docs, I'm not really "using my phone" at all. This came to a head one morning.
"What are you doing?" she said.
"Writing," I said
"Hmmm," she said, smugly.
"I told you that whenever you see me on my phone, I'm writing."
"I think this is a crutch," she said.
"Stop," I said
"Because you're still picking up your phone."
"If I was writing a book 50 years ago, it would be with pen and paper."
"If you were writing a book 50 years ago you would have to go to your desk, get pen and paper. When you use your phone, it's preventing you doing something else."
I sighed.
"You're doing that 'cause I'm right," she said.
I got up to leave the room, so I could write down the preceding conversation in peace, for use in this article.
"Hmmm," she said, "I see you're taking your phone to the toilet."
I ignored her.
"When I came back, she said, "Did you flush the toilet?"
"I didn't use the toilet," I said. "I just had to go write something down."
"Wow," she said. "You've got it bad."
I started to write that down.
"Oh my God!" she said. "You don't have to write everything down just so you can touch your phone!"
When you tell the world you're trying to do something difficult, the whole world becomes self-righteous. Zanna was the worst offender but it's surprising the number of people who took pleasure in it. One night, while I was using Spotify to put on a sleep meditation for Casper [5], he said, "Didn't you say you're writing a story about not using your phone for 40 days?" The good thing about 5 year olds is that they have short attention spans. When I ignored him, he went back to singing: "Shake my booty, everyone! Shake my booty!"
When I was sure he was asleep, I checked my email. My body wouldn't let me resist it.
My first screen-time report came five days into Lent and showed my phone usage was 37 per cent down on the previous week, to two hours and 38 minutes a day. I told Zanna. She said, "You should be embarrassed." Over the coming weeks, the usage got as high as three hours, 30 minutes and as low as one hour, 36. Mostly I blame the kids, who like doing Wordle on my phone and aren't very good at it.
As the weeks passed, I found myself touching my pocket less, hearing less and less of my brain yelling at me that unless I immediately lifted the phone to my face and swiped at various apps, I would never again know happiness. I don't know if my time away from my phone has changed my life but I do know I used to hate that feeling and that I no longer have it.
A week ago, Zanna sent me a link to a podcast interview with renowned psychiatrist and addiction expert Anna Lembke, of Stanford University, who is another of the stars of the documentary The Social Dilemma mentioned earlier in this article. At the time she sent it, I was in the midst of one of my periods - since ended - in which I believed podcasts to be phone use, so instead I read an interview with her in The Guardian, on my laptop. The main takeaway was that she believes phone use limits the time we have for doing things that matter: being a good parent, spouse and friend.
Her central quote, "I do believe there is a cost – one that I don't think we fully recognise because it's hard to [see it] when you're in it."
But once you're outside it, it becomes very easy. A few days before the end of Lent, I was working downstairs when Zanna phoned me from the kitchen. While we were talking, I walked upstairs and as I entered the room in which she was talking to me on speaker, I saw her tapping at her screen. I said, "Don't hang up!" She said, "I'm not. I'm texting."
I felt self-righteous and self-righteousness had never felt so good.
46 days without a phone
Day 1
Zanna: I see you're on your computer, which is basically the same as being on your phone
Greg: I was waiting for that, with teeth gritted.
Zanna: Sorry. I just don't see how it's any different.
Day 2
An alarm went off on my phone
Zanna: Oh you looked at your phone again.
Greg: My alarm went off!
Zanna: If you're going to do something you have to do it properly.
Day 5
In the afternoon, I dialled a friend I would normally text. He didn't answer, but called me back a few minutes later. When I said, "What did you think when you saw I'd called?" he said, "I assumed there was some sort of emergency."
Day 14
While we were out, I told Zanna I wanted to add "get lightbulb" to the to do list on my phone. She said, "You can because this whole experiment is not allowed to make you drop the ball for your household responsibilities."
Day 15
Zanna was watching dance videos on her phone in bed. When I tried to watch, she turned away and told me I couldn't.
Day 21
While I was putting Casper to bed, during his second week at school, he said: "Do you know why people think I don't write a lot? Because I don't actually know how to write stuff." I had to write that on my phone because I could never forgive myself for ever forgetting it.
Day 22
Zanna: Has anyone seen my phone?
Greg: I don't know. I don't even notice mine anymore.
Zanna: I need it.
Greg: I used to be like you.
Day 27
Zanna: Can you go on to Family Link and authorise Clara to spend more time on Prodigy?
Greg: I think Family Link's on my phone. Can you do it?
Zanna: It seems to be fine for you to use your phone whenever you want to, but okay.
Day 35
My editor texted: "What was it you were giving up for Lent again?" I had no choice but to reply.
