Not everything needs to be known: How one day with no phone changed my life

I can't count the number of times I stood outside my neighborhood church and lied to myself about my smartphone usage.

Over the past decade, my daughters have often stopped to play on the church's thick grass lawn. That's when I engage in the ritual of pulling the device from my pocket to pass the time, under the guise of efficiency. The lie arrives swiftly: You need to catch up on the online grocery order. You need to respond to that unanswered text message. Don't you need to know the weekend weather forecast? 

If I did see what I was doing, justifications would follow. Hey, your parents didn't watch you every second of the day. You're not doomscrolling, you're being productive!  It was only when I cut my phone out of my life for 24 hours that I saw those justifications were deceptions as well.

After writing a story about the annual Global Day of Unplugging, I decided to try it for myself. I emerged a changed person. When I returned to the church lawn just a few days later, I couldn't recognize my former self — the one who was convinced that her smartphone served her best interests.  

Now the constant connectivity seems like torture. When I don't have my phone at my side, I no longer have the fear that something is undone or amiss. The sensation of my phone in my back or coat pocket no longer registers as convenience but as a burden.

Instead, I feel a deep and abiding sense of ease. I have successfully reset my nervous system, shifting out of constant high-alert and into the sought-after "rest and digest" state. I'm much more patient with my children. And I sleep easier than I have in years.

I've read stories like this before, always with a skeptical eye. I thought 24-hour breaks were for people who used their smartphone mindlessly. I thought I had strong tech boundaries. After all, I report on the science of digital technology and well-being. My family has a no-phone rule at dinnertime. I didn't scroll social media in bed. I turn off notifications for most apps, and use the focus mode regularly.

Nonetheless, I'd built an illusion of freedom, underneath which my mind and attention remained yoked to my smartphone. I spent my days optimizing for productivity and efficiency. I toggled between email, texts, weather, maps, shopping, and other apps. My mind generated a never-ending list of tasks to complete on a screen. 

The scene at the church lawn wasn't unique. I did this nearly everywhere, even as I occasionally challenged myself to leave the phone untouched for short bursts. 

But a day without my phone was what it took to teach me that true liberation means living in the ambiguous and imperfect present, without a device as your dictator — or your crutch. 

"Not everything needs to be known" 

The idea of a digital sabbath has been around for years. I had long discounted the impact it might have on me personally. Still, the interviews I conducted for my story on the Global Day of Unplugging awakened something. 

When I decided to participate, I set low expectations. At first I committed to a 12-hour fast, from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. My husband agreed to join me. To my surprise, a few family members did as well, when I informed our group chat that I would be unavailable via text for the evening. 

And that meant, for the first time that I can recall since I became a smartphone owner in 2009, I slept with my device in a different room.

This should have been low-hanging fruit. I knew the research that suggests a smartphone in the bedroom can worsen sleep. But without a landline, I feared I'd miss an emergency call in the middle of the night from a family member. I'd grown accustomed to listening to a 10-minute meditation on my phone at bedtime. Secretly, I didn't want to lose my meditation app streak. 

For this experiment, I decided to move my phone to the kitchen overnight. I took logistical advice from Catherine Price, author of How to Break Up with Your Phone: The 30-Day Plan to Take Back Your Life, who recommended putting my phone on do-not-disturb while also leaving the ringer on in case a "favorite" contact needed to reach me.

I thought I'd struggle to fall asleep, but the opposite happened: I drifted off peacefully, no meditation needed. 

There were moments of restlessness, but I awoke in the morning feeling lighter and more refreshed. I could've looked at my phone then; I'd hit the 12-hour mark. Whether it was the curious journalist or competitive athlete in me — or a combination of both — I decided I wanted to go further. Maybe I could make it 24 hours. A family caregiver would be spending the day with our kids, as my husband and I ventured out into the world without phones.

The preplanned date made sticking to a 24-hour fast trickier than it might have otherwise been. Our phones came with us, but they traveled in a zippered pouch in a backpack instead of our pockets.

First, we ran an errand that had been on our calendar for weeks. We discovered upon arriving that we were a half hour early, a product of not checking our phones habitually to confirm the details in advance. We decided to walk to a pizzeria for a quick slice. I knew from experience that it was a five to seven-minute walk.

Any other day I would've pulled up the location in my maps app to confirm the distance and walking time. Not this time. As we strolled, a phrase came to mind: not everything needs to be known. 

Freedom from the impulse to check

The impulse to check my phone arose multiple times early on that day, just as Price had warned. 

"The moment you put your phone down your brain is going to protest by coming up with all of these things you need to check or look up or buy or do," she told me. "It really is kind of fascinating how panicked your brain will get." 

Price recommended carrying a notebook to guard against the checking reflex, which I did. Yet a curious pattern emerged each time my brain wanted to consult the phone: None of the tasks were really that urgent or necessary. 

I didn't need to know the exact temperature; it was as unseasonably warm as our digital home thermometer said it would be. Still, my mind continued to search for things to do. Wouldn't it be nice to visit Lake Tahoe this summer? Maybe I should check the going rental rates. 

I heard the refrain again: Not everything needs to be known. 

After the errand, my husband and I decided to spend the summer-like spring day at the beach. Without checking a maps app, we concluded that traffic jams and packed parking lots would make the trip unpleasant. We opted for public transit instead, taking our chances on a ferry without checking the schedule. 

Once in the car, we realized neither of us knew how to get to the closest freeway entrance. We could've stopped and asked a stranger for directions, but for the video game-like maze of freeway entrances and the lack of places to park. Instead I summoned my phone's voice assistant — from the trunk — for brief directions, via the car's console. Once on the freeway, I exited the maps app on the console because I knew my way. 

This, I realized, is what it actually feels like to use your phone as a tool. 

No selfies, no problems

More than a hundred people stood in line at the ferry terminal, trying to shield themselves from the sun. Our phones remained stashed in the pouch. We didn't want them to rescue us from the uncertainty of the next boat's arrival.

The ferry came into view quickly, and we managed to shuffle slowly on board before the boat reached capacity. I contemplated a selfie with my husband, the wind whipping our hair as the ferry sped across the bay, faster than I've ever experienced. Normally I would've documented the moment and texted the image to a family thread as evidence of our adventure, awaiting their digital-heart responses.

But I didn't need the selfie or those affirmations today. The phone stayed stowed away.

Once in the city, I remembered which train would take us the eight-plus miles to the beach. On the train we counted each stop — more than two dozen of them between us and the Pacific Ocean, which crashed onto the beach before us an hour later.

The sound of waves usually calms my nervous system. This time, though, I arrived feeling relaxed. I hadn't battled traffic to this gorgeous destination, that was part of it. But I could also feel the equanimity of a peaceful existence start to override the impulse to check something — anything! — on my phone.

"I feel free," I told my husband, as we looked towards the thin blue horizon line. 

An adventure from before smartphones

Dinnertime approached. We walked to a restaurant we'd seen from the train. The fusion taco menu was a nice surprise; we hadn't checked what the restaurant served, or its reviews. The food took a while. We people-watched and bantered about the restaurant's early 2000s SoCal surf soundtrack instead of disappearing into devices. 

The food delay made our trip home more complicated than we expected. As the minutes ticked away, so did our ability to make the right ferry back home (I'd written down the schedule in my notebook). So we decided to take a ride-share car to a commuter train, which would deposit us as close to the ferry terminal where we parked as possible.

Once it helped in hailing the car, the phone stayed in its pouch. Again, it played the part of a useful tool instead of a distraction to mask our stress about getting back to our kids. 

Arriving at the train stop close to the ferry terminal, we looked for buses to take us the rest of the way. None were expected to come soon. So we opted to walk through the city without the aid of the maps app. We trusted our knowledge of the neighborhood's layout from years of driving through it.

I still don't know how long we walked. I never checked. We marveled during the stroll about how the day's adventure felt like something we would've done ages ago, before smartphones. 

'So you were like a kid?'

I later recounted the story to my older tween daughter, who does not have a smartphone but is surrounded by peers who do. I told her we'd spent the day navigating without directions or any clear timeline.

"So you were like a kid, then?" she asked me. I couldn't think of a more bittersweet response.

A few days later, thinking back on it, I felt a surge of anger. My 24-hour fast had reframed so much of my tech use as a waste of time, when I believed it to be productive and useful. This angry feeling is apparently common amongst those who unplug, according to the experts I've interviewed. Now I understand why everyone who has the phone-free epiphany proselytizes about it. 

As I write this, I'm three days out from my 24-hour fast. I'm learning to navigate the workweek without making my phone central to it. The transition isn't easy. I missed an important call and feel the urge to be available to friends and family via text. I've certainly thought twice about texting someone who's turned on do-not-disturb; I don't want to suddenly feel unreachable.

But I also don't want my attention split into meaningless fragments. And it took coming back to that church lawn to remind me.

That evening I was walking the dog with my younger daughter. She just lost her first tooth, often joyously hop-skips, and likes to collect tiny flower bouquets for me. Choral practice was underway inside the church; she was intrigued by the voices singing in harmony. She peered through the window, on tip toes, to take in the scene. I encouraged her to walk through the open front door and peek inside. She reported back: "They're singing!"

I grew up attending Catholic mass and have always been moved by hymnal singing. This time, tears gathered as I stood still and listened, while watching my daughter dart between blooming bushes, gathering scattered fallen flowers for me.

My phone was in my pocket. I had no urge to reach for it. I could not have cared less about my shopping list, unanswered texts, or the weather forecast. I was content in the moment, as the sky slowly darkened around us and voices in unison gave praise to God.