An Underrated Productivity Hack: ‘Dumb Down’ Your Phone

5 strategies to sap your phone’s power and regain time and focus

Stephan Joppich
The Attention Resistance

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Photo by Sumeet Singh on Unsplash

If you’re reading this, you possess prodigious powers.

You could read the entire history of humankind. Have your deepest food craving delivered to your doorstep. Spend the entire day watching Netflix. Learn any imaginable skill. Or call a stranger on the other side of the globe.

All it takes are a few swift flicks of your thumbs.

This is a problem.

Why Powerful Phones Are a Problem

The average US adult spends nearly four hours on their phone. Per day. And this doesn’t even consider the additional screen time from TVs or computers. For kids, screen time nearly doubled during the pandemic.

This makes us miserable.

Negative health effects don’t just show up. They secretly creep in. From drained creativity to sleep issues. From envy to loneliness. And from anxiety to depression. Not to mention the lifetime you mindlessly sacrifice glued to your screen.

The dangers of excessive screen time seem to fill an encyclopedia of endless volume.

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Stephan Joppich
The Attention Resistance

Engineer turned philosophy student • I write about loneliness, transformative books, and other pseudo-deep stuff that keeps me up at night • stephanjoppich.com