Five women find freedom from their phones

What’s the first thing you touch in the morning and the last thing you see before you drop off to sleep? For far too many of us, the answer is our phones. Five women said “Enough!” and actively took steps to disconnect from their device and reconnect with what matters

Researcher and author Catherine Price remembers when it hit her: She was feeding her baby, and while her baby was looking into her eyes, Catherine was looking at her phone’s screen. She knew then that something had to change.

She started thinking seriously about the ways we interact with technology.

“I realized that if you add up the hours that we spend each day interacting with our phones, tablets, laptops, and desktops, many of us are spending the majority of our waking lives staring at a screen,” she says. “Sure, much of this screen time is useful or necessary. But there are a lot of other times when our screens distract us from things that are truly important to us — whether it’s the people we love or the activities that bring us meaning and joy.”

Price was inspired to write How to Break Up with Your Phone. In the first part of the book, she explains how phones are designed to be addictive, providing the science to back her up. The second part of the book is a 30-day plan to undo phone addiction and reduce the amount of time spent mindlessly on your phone.

We challenged five women to read her book and share with us how her plan worked for them. Here are their stories.

Chana Rochel

50, undergrad psychology/medicine

Iwas born in 1971, and for the first 35 years of my life, I did everything myself, without the help of a phone. Then came the information age, and I got a smartphone. It was a gradual process, but I found myself using my phone all the time.

I was on Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp. I had reasons for using each. Facebook helped me keep in touch with family, Instagram gave me all kinds of cooking and organizational tips, WhatsApp was important for communication.

When Family First invited me to take this challenge, I wanted to see if I could cut out Facebook and Instagram. I knew it wasn’t going to be possible to eliminate WhatsApp.

The first week, I did my own research on technology and how it affects us as a society. One of the things that came up was how the corporate heads of tech companies don’t allow their children to have any devices. Price mentioned that in her book, but I learned that those executives have their children partake in other activities, like horseback riding, art projects, and piano.

That’s where I wanted to be. I don’t want to rely on my phone; I want to be free, same as those children.