I want to quit my phone in 2026.

Sit down on full a city bus on your way to work in Chicago and if you look up from your phone for a moment you’ll notice that everyone else is staring down at their phone too.

Get a membership at a gym with a steam room (somewhere to decompress after work), even in a relaxmaxxing place like this everyone brings their phone in or wears airpods.

I couldn’t help but notice this the past few months. Last week I counted. Maybe 3 out of 50 people on the bus not looking at their phone. 5 out of 5 in the sauna staring at theirs.

I worry about this. For myself and everyone really. You might tell your self that instagram reels or candy crush is well-deserved a guilty pleasure after a long day. But the reality is that unnecessary screentime has spiraled out of control since COVID.

People joke about a futuristic world like the movie WALL-E where we all roll around aimlessly in hoverchairs with screens glued to our faces. Brother we are already living it.

Call me naive or an idealist but I think about what it takes to be great. To get the most out of life. It’s hard to picture your role models doomscrolling. You never see smartphones in your dreams. How many would-be greats of the next 50 years will be culled by phone addiction?

I’m not saying it’s everybody’s fault. I struggle with it just as much as anyone. The phones and the apps and the feeds and the content have been optimized to perfection with a singular purpose of keeping you scrolling.

So a humble goal of mine in the next year is to drastically reduce my time on my phone in 2026 - and in doing so increase my focus, creativity, time with friends, overall mental and physical wellbeing. Something I’d like to take seriously.

Here are 5 solutions I’ve found with increasing levels of severity:

1) Turn Your Phone on Grayscale
This is the simplest and most elegant solution I’ve found. Simply turn off the color on your phone. Both iPhone and Android have options in your settins to do this, outlined in this Reddit post. You can even turn on a shortcut to quickly toggle it on and off (I’ve set my iPhone up to go code-gray by tripleclicking the power button)

2) Install App Blockers on Your Phone
There are a few of these that have gained popularity in the past year, essentially apps that limit or entirely block other apps that you know you should spend less time on. (Apple has built in Screentime controls but they are too easy to circumvent). Opal is popular, Clearspace is by far my fav (worth paying for). With Clearspace you can turn on push-up mode for minutes or even publish your screentime to the public.

3) Use External ‘Bricking’ Devices
Another option is to use a device to make your phone unusable for certain periods of time. Of course these are more extreme and also harder to cheat. A recently viral one (the irony) is called Brick, a little square that literally bricks certain apps on your phone temporarily when you tap it. Another generic option is to use a Kitchen Safe and put your phone in it. Good options for temporary deepwork.

4) Do A 30d Dopamine Detox
A more habit-aware approach is to take an extended period off of entertainment-tech and go cold turkey. This post on Twitter inspired me a bit. The key (like with any habit modifying behavior) is to replace scrolling urges with other healthier activites - buy a bunch of books, get a gym membership, join a club, find other things to fill your time. It takes 30 days to make/break a habit, and it starts by being mindful of your scrolling.

5) Get a Flip Phone
The most drastic approach is to get rid of your smartphone entirely. This is a growing trend - I’ve seen at least 3 posts the past month of people going to these lengths (including this Linkedin pos). The main concern of course is that you miss out on the genuinely productive parts of having an iPhone (messaging, web-search, camera, notes, etc), but then again these are all things you once accomplished with other devices/tools anyways. Not sure I’m ready for these measures, but here’s one perspective:

Overall the goal is to recapture more of life’s precious moments. Spend more time socializing, smelling the roses, being productive. All things that are goals of mine in their own right, that spending time scrolling gets in the way of.

So, something to consider. I use clearspace already, and in January intend to try out the detox outlined in #4, something like this (plus or minus a few things) 👇. If you’ve had any success staying off your phone - what are your secrets? Would love to hear!

Peace,
Ramsey