‘Unplug' Review: Living Phone Free
But then what would you do without the authenticator apps, and the banking apps, and that great camera, and your work emails? It's unthinkable. Or is it? With 'Unplug,' Richard Simon, a journalist and director of website strategy at Georgetown University's law school, is here to tell you that it can be done, and to explain how.
As in a 12-step program, the first thing to do is to admit that you have a problem. Our relationships with our phones are described in this book with the language of substance addiction (you need a 'digital detox') or relationship therapy (you need a 'phone breakup'), and the cure is quasireligious: You should 'ritualize' things like reading or even daydreaming.
Mr. Simon recommends beginning by going cold turkey: He switched off his own smartphone for 12 months, having warned friends and family, and advises the reader to disconnect for at least 60 days. Once you have struggled through the worst of the 'withdrawal,' you can decide whether you want to use a 'basic phone' (one without internet services) or perhaps try to 'reintegrate' the smartphone (as though it were a paroled prisoner being helped to live again in civil society) while being more 'mindful' of how you use it. There is pseudoscientific talk of the neurotransmitter dopamine as the molecule that smartphones evilly target and how the technology manipulates us on a chemical level. In Mr. Simon's view, addicts should be wary of behaviors that replace one source of surging dopamine with another—if you dump your phone but watch endless YouTube videos on your laptop, you're no better off.
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