Seven years ago, while writing Digital Minimalism, computer scientist and author Cal Newport proposed a challenge to his newsletter subscribers:

30-days without a smartphone.

1600 subscribers agreed to take on the challenge. After surveying the participants, Newport saw a few patterns emerge.

The participants who tried to whiteknuckle the challenge through sheer willpower almost all failed to make it through the full 30 days. Most participants used their smartphone as a source of entertainment and distraction. When that source of amusement was suddenly gone the willpower group couldn't cope with the discomfort of boredom.

But there was another group of participants that thrived during the challenge. Instead of gritting their teeth through the 30 days, this group aggressively pursued alternatives to their phone. They explored new hobbies, they read books, they challenged themselves to learn new skills, they spent more time with friends and family, and they reassesed their values so that when the 30 days was over they wouldn't resort back to wasting away all of their time refreshing a social media feed.

Smartphones and the media apps we use them to access were filling a void for all 1600 participants. The key to success was finding healthy alternatives to meet their needs.

It's been seven years since that experiment and screen time problems have only gotten worse. At one point even I was spending five and a half hours a day looking at my phone–literal months of my life that I will never get back.

Twenty-eight years ago Robert Greene wrote about a law of power that I think about often.

Law 11: Learn to keep people dependent on you.

When the smartphone becomes the only portal to our needs we become slaves to the pull of novelty and distraction.

Everything changed for me when I bought my first pocket notebook.

For the first time in my adult life there was an alternative to the phone. There was another pocket I could reach into when I felt anxious, bored, or wanted to capture an idea before I forgot about it. I started to write down quotes and passages to reflect on in my downtime. I started exploring new hobbies like journaling and drawing. I wrote haikus and poems between the pages when I felt bored. Eventually my phone became boring itself. Why waste my time scrolling when I could go to my notebook where all these new ideas were brewing?

The pocket notebook became my weapon of rebellion against the screen.

We don't have to abandon technology to live focused and intentional lives, but we do need to create these pockets of resistance: firm boundaries between the digital realm and our real lives–alternatives to meet out needs.

Otherwise, we remain dependent on the inventions and incentives of Silicon Valley for our happiness, a prospect I fully reject.

Prompt:

Where and how are you creating pockets of resistance in your life?