Phone Free FAQ

The definitive guide to what on earth is going on here, and the science behind it. It's time for Ask A High Vis Idiot.

Welcome!

This article is part of a long-running experiment to reclaim minds from the phone.

We’ve all noticed how phones waste our time. But in hidden ways, they also destroy our mood.

We all feel ground down by worries about work, about our health, about the world. But we seldom recognise that behind the scenes it is our heavy phone use that is to blame. It is crushing our spirit, poisoning our positivity and making every little thing seem daunting.

Not having a phone is near impossible. We likely need them for our lives and our jobs.

Many of have tried everything to cut our phone use, but found whatever we do, we continue to pick it up entirely automatically.

The answer is not just to continue to try and use the phone less - that doesn’t work. Instead it’s to carve out a clear, daily intentional silence from the phone. You could call this intermittent digital fasting.

In that time we train our mind to stop automatically picking up the phone, and reverse the phone’s (frankly massive) psychological effects on us.

This daily training can be done at any time of day in any way that suits you. Could be driving, could be a morning walk, but for me it was easiest in my daily train commute.

This post serves to answer all the questions people normally ask me when they see me in the Phone Free Commute high vis vest.

When it’s underlined, I’ve linked to a post I’ve written, for those interested in reading more about my abject history of phone addiction failure.

---

What on earth are you doing?

I’m a TV producer and father. A few years ago I made my daughter cry when I looked at my phone rather than watch her during a ballet recital.

In the years after, no matter what I did, I couldn’t stop using my phone (or thinking about my phone) with my family.

When I realised I was picking up the phone automatically I decided I needed to take time to train my mind against this effect.

I learnt how to meditate, and spent 18 months doing so daily. It helped, but now I’ve decided to devote much more time to it.

I have a busy life, so I use my commute for it.

Because I have failed to resist the power of the phone many times before (and because why not, life is short) I do it wearing Phone Free Commute high vis. The social commitment has worked - I don’t look at my phone at all on the commute.

After a month, I declared victory (of sorts) over the phone. It has improved my life massively.

---

What is Substack?

My writing is hosted on Substack, which allows you to get my posts emailed to you once a week on Tuesday mornings. Avoid the distraction machine and receive these direct.

Obviously, it’s totally free - I’m doing this because I believe in it.

---

---

The commute is the one time I can get my phone stuff out the way. I’ll just tackle my phone use at home.

That is what I did for years.

But then I learnt about how using the phone rewires the brain, so it makes you use the phone more. Phone use creates phone use.

If you use it heavily in the commute you will want to use it when you get where you are going and feel uneasy if you can’t.

And because phone pickups are automatic, they near impossible to fight. Battling them at home is depressing, stressful and almost everyone feels like they are failing - this is a hugely common experience.

Try something new.

If you have dead time that you can use for anything, use it to rewire the brain.

---

At least I have something to do on my commute. What’s it like having nothing to do?

I do have something to do.

I’m training the mind to get rid of the instinct to pick up the phone automatically.

I use a technique inspired by mindfulness that allows me to watch my thoughts rather than to just have them, to separate “me” from the urge to scroll.

And to be honest, that’s hard.

First, the mind thinks up a thousand reasons to use the phone. I like to think of that as like an Evil Advisor in my head.

Then the mind gets filled up by whatever you don’t want to think about. For me, that’s work worries - why did I say that to Clive? Clive thinks I’m rubbish etc.

And then I found I experienced a weird kind of loneliness. (Warning - this piece is a bit bleak).

Around week four I began to feel the benefits I described above, which have been beyond amazing.

---

What’s it like a month in? You must be so bored.

I still want to use the phone. I still have to train, to practise saying to myself It’s okay, I’ll do it later.

I try and practise being present, by listening to the sounds on the train. This is training to rebuild my phone-shattered focus, training to be more present with my family (I learned this from my dog).

I see the other commuters on their phone, and it doesn’t look appealing. It feels like I’m in a shelter while others are caught in the trillion dollar war for their attention.

The commute now feels much easier, but the real benefits are felt in the rest of my life.

---

It all sounds meditatey. Are you meditatey?

I’ve learnt a huge amount of helpful things from that world over the last year and a half.

But for many, meditation is a loaded term - maybe training the mind is an easier way to imagine it.

Practice to resist the call to the phone, combined with rewarding yourself for being present, is mental training for the smartphone age. It’s anti-phone training, to undo the damage. It’s the price of having a phone.

I suspect that in the centuries before phones were invented, we maintained our mental health in the incidental gaps in life. During those moments we were resting our minds, or maybe even being a little mindful without knowing the term.

Now the phone has spread into all those gaps, not just through screen use but also through podcasts. So now we have to choose silence intentionally.

---

It would make more sense if you read a book.

I found it easier to imagine this as training rather than relaxing. I think it’s important to know it won’t be easy.

And for me the silence was the medicine.

But, as far as I know, a book would work just as well (if you can stick to it).

---

Or why don’t you just listen to relaxing music or a podcast or something?

I’m trying to escape 24/7 distraction.

When I asked AI to use its neuroscience knowledge to estimate what would happen with podcasts and music, it said the chances of psychological benefits are hugely reduced. (Books don’t cause anywhere near the same reduction it seems).

---

Have you just made this up? What’s the science behind this?

I read a tonne about neuroscience, contemplative traditions, the psychological effects of the phone and behavioural science before deciding on this plan.

When I started feeling the benefits, I learnt all I could about neuroscience to work out what happened. Apparently doing this daily consistently for four weeks rewires the brain in positive ways:

• Heavy phone use reinforces the automatic habit to pick up the phone. It strengthens the wiring in the brain’s basal ganglia. Using this technique strengthens the pre-frontal cortex, allowing conscious control of phone use.

• Taking a daily break from distraction and so processing your worries (from work or wherever) is good for you. You need to allow the brain’s Default Mode Network to “breathe”.

---

What about my commute? I drive / walk / work at home

The commute worked for me because it fitted so neatly into my life.

If that’s not you, I’m guessing you can get your daily dose of mental focus another way. Neuroplasticity does not care where you are: it only cares that you are regularly doing the work.

If you drive, try driving in silence. (I drive in silence and find it quite safe, but obviously you are the best judge).

If you do not commute, try a twenty minute morning walk.

If you are trying this, I’d be really interested to hear how it goes - clearly the challenge will be sticking to it.

---

Okay, I’m suddenly converted. This sounds amazing. You’re amazing and you look great in the high vis.

Can I join you?

If you’re giving this a try, all of the articles above are useful priming. But in brief, I’d recommend -

1. Get in touch and say hello. Every single person I’ve spoken to about this has identified themselves as uniquely addicted to their phone. So clearly the problem is with the phone, not with each of us. We should stick together - it’s much easier if we feel part of something. Plus we can work out together what works through collaborative experimentation.

2. As you might have read in the articles above, it’s very challenging at first. Consistency is more important than duration. So maybe start with just five minutes (or a small section of your commute).

3. I leave my phone turned on (I need it to touch in and out, such is modern life) but put it onto Do Not Disturb.

4. Feel free to read a book, but I’d recommend not listening to anything personally.

5. Try and notice your mind calling you back to the phone for all sorts of reasons good and bad. This is training your mind to notice the automatic impulse, and also practising to resist it. It’s invaluable.

6. Beyond this, feel free to let your mind wander. Over time you might begin to notice the environment of the train around you. Maybe the sounds is easiest. I think of this as training my mind to default to the present moment. But don’t worry in the least if this doesn’t come easy - it takes time.

7. Do the above daily without expectation of it being relaxing (or any positive results) for four or five weeks.

Above all, this is about collective playful experimentation. A small community is forming with the shared recognition that kicking the phone habit is harder than everyone pretends, but the gains from it are much bigger than everyone imagines.

Good luck! And please do get in touch.

---