You're Not Addicted to Your Phone — You're Unfulfilled
Alright, maybe the title is a little sharp, but I stand behind the essence of it.
It’s not just about your phone. It’s about your hunger for meaning.
So many of us end up scrolling endlessly, waiting — hoping — for a text that never comes, or losing ourselves in hours of a show we’re not really watching. And then we sit there, frustrated, asking ourselves why we’re spending (or wasting) so much of our precious time this way.
I understand this frustration intimately. I’ve noticed this about myself: I only fall into these loops when my life feels empty of real presence. When the hours ahead feel hollow, unanchored, unclaimed. But when I am with people I love, deeply engaged in a project that excites me, traveling, laughing, creating, or simply absorbed in something that feels alive — I forget my phone even exists. The digital world loses its grip.
We often try to fight these patterns by sheer willpower — stop scrolling, cut back on screen time, be more disciplined. But I’ve come to believe that the only sustainable way to break a habit is to offer the soul something more nourishing. Something it can say yes to, not just something to say no to.
After all, no one had to remind you to put away your phone on a breathtaking first date. You weren’t refreshing your notifications while swimming in the ocean. In those moments, you were alive. You were present. And presence is the ultimate antidote to distraction.
Our dependence on devices isn’t a moral failing — it’s an existential signal flare. It’s the soul’s quiet cry: I am hungry for something real. So the question isn’t just “how do I stop spending so much time on my phone?” The deeper question is: what would make me so alive that I forget to check it in the first place?
Recommendations:
1. How to Be a Grown Up: The 14 Essential Skills You Didn’t Know You Needed (Until Just Now) by Raffi Grinberg.
The Tell by Amy Griffin.
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"It’s not just about your phone. It’s about your hunger for meaning."
So true! I would never look at a notification on a hike!
“presence is the ultimate antidote to distraction.”
this is so true… your mind is merely focused on the present moment and everything else fades in the background.