How to Break Up with Your Phone Book Summary - How to Break Up with Your Phone Book explained in key points
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How to Break Up with Your Phone summary

Catherine Price

The 30-Day Plan to Take Back Your Life

4.3 (196 ratings)
26 mins

What is How to Break Up with Your Phone about?

How to Break Up With Your Phone (2018) examines the increasingly visible and often addictive relationships we have with our phones. These blinks consider how we could start using phones with more awareness. If done correctly, we can stop using our devices to provide endless distractions, and instead use them as tools to enhance our lives.

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    How to Break Up with Your Phone
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    The number of people addicted to their phones is quickly increasing.

    Just take a look around you. On public transport, in restaurants, on street corners, whichever way you look today you’ll most likely see people – including children – glued to their phones.

    And the evidence is not just anecdotal. The data is clear.

    According to a 2016 Deloitte survey conducted in the United States, the average American checks his or her phone an average of 47 times each day. In the 18 to 24 age bracket, this number shoots up to a whopping 82 times per day.

    What that means, in terms of time, was clarified by research published in 2015 on hackernoon.com. Americans spend an average of four hours a day with their phones. That’s 28 hours per week, basically the same as having a fairly busy part-time job!

    So how do you know if you’re addicted? Thankfully, there’s a straightforward test you can take. It’s called the Smartphone Compulsion Test. It can be found online, and was designed by the University of Connecticut’s Dr. David Greenfield.

    Some of the key questions include: Do you occasionally spend more time with your phone than intended? Do you scroll without any sense of direction? Do you find yourself communicating more with people via your phone, rather than in real life? Do you keep your phone switched on in bed? Do you tend to stop what you’re doing so you can respond to something on your phone?

    If you find yourself answering yes to questions like these, then chances are you’ve got an addictive relationship with your phone.

    But don’t panic – you are not alone. Let’s begin by looking at why checking your phone really is a form of addiction, and what it means for you.

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    Best quote from How to Break Up with Your Phone

    Youre guinea pigs in the box pushing the button and sometimes getting the Likes. – Ramsay Brown, founder of Dopamine Labs

    —Catherine Price
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    About the Author

    Catherine Price is an author and science journalist living in Philadelphia. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post and the San Francisco Chronicle. Her other books include Vitamania (2015) and 101 Places Not to See Before You Die (2010).

    Who should read How to Break Up with Your Phone?

    • Phone addicts
    • Distracted and forgetful types
    • Luddites afraid of the impact of modern technology

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