Smartphone Rules of Engagement

7 min read

There’s an internet saying that’s pretty true: ‘If something online is free, you’re the product.’ Social media is the obvious example, but another underrated one is smart TVs. Ever wonder why TVs are so cheap? They’re subsidized. TV manufacturers have moved away from making money on the hardware. Most of them operate on razor-thin margins, or even lose money to get their TV into your living room.1 Ads make up the lost revenue. Previously, TV makers didn’t care how you used the TV, just that you bought it. Now, the incentives have changed. TV software is designed to keep you watching as long as possible, so that it can serve you more ads.

Many of the tech platforms we frequent today are specifically designed to keep users online as long as possible. What can we do about that, if we’re concerned about how that design will influence us?

In Digital Minimalism, Cal Newport talks about having standard operating procedures for the technology you choose to include in your life. You have to ask yourself, “How am I going to use this technology going forward to maximize its value and minimize its harms?” (76). With any technology that you choose to use, you must answer this question.

My smartphone is a piece of technology that I choose to use, therefore I need a set of standard operating procedures to dictate how I use it. Here are the principles I follow.

1. Always have a plan for what you’ll do before you unlock.

This is the most important but most difficult. If you’re like me, you have years of usage habits ingrained into you. So often you find yourself doing 15 other things in addition to the thing you planned to do. As much as you are able, don’t let that happen.

One of the best things you can do to help prevent this is to ensure, simply, that there’s not much to do on your phone. Don’t let it become an everything tool. Delete the games and entertainment. Carry a notebook instead of using your notes app. Bring a real book in your bag to read. Remove apps from it that violate your definition of the purpose of a smartphone.

The next one can also help with this principle.

2. All notifications off by default.

This is one of a few principles that come from Newport’s book. You weren’t designed to be always on call, 24/7, and 99% of the notifications you receive aren’t urgent. And you often pick up your phone to respond to a notification only to then continue using your phone far beyond your original intention. So, turn notifications off for all your apps. Keep your phone on do not disturb all the time. Then, you can add back in the notifications you actually need. Be choosy, though!

I have an iPhone, and I leave it in the “Personal” focus mode all day.2 I’ve configured it to allow Reminders and Calendar notifications, texts from only 3 people, and all phone calls. I tell people that I don’t typically respond right away to texts, but I’ll always pick up the phone if it’s nearby if they have something urgent to tell me.

3. Only have it when you need it.

Another tricky one. Try to be vigilant about considering whether you should bring your phone at all to a given event or location. A great example in my life is church. I don’t want to be on my phone while I’m at a church service. So, I leave my phone in the car. I typically don’t leave my phone at home, just in case I have an emergency while driving.

This is something you’ll get a better intuition for with time. When you start out with this principle, you may accidentally leave your phone behind when you really needed it, because you’re so used to having it with you all the time that you forgot to consider every reason you use it in that context. Much of our lives is routine. So, pretty soon, you’ll figure out whether you really need it for most of your common activities.

4. Don’t keep it within arm’s reach.

This principle is basically “out of sight, out of mind.” If you introduce just a bit of friction in the process of picking up your phone, that can be enough of a deterrent to reduce usage. At home, you can tether your phone somewhere. Leave it in the kitchen, for example, and force yourself to physically go there to use it. When you’re carrying it, don’t keep it in your pocket whenever possible. If you have a bag, put it in there. As a college student, I tried keeping my phone in the small top pocket of my backpack. If I needed my phone for some reason, I’d have to stop, take off my backpack, and get it out. I also didn’t allow myself to keep moving until I finished doing what I needed to do, and replaced it in the backpack.

5. It’s not for entertainment.

This is an essential principle. I don’t think your phone’s purpose should be to entertain you when you’re bored.3 That impulse, to pick it up when you’re bored, is why it has such a powerful addictive hold on people. It’s why smartphones are often so distracting. The issue is that boring moments happen constantly in everyday life. Cleaning our living space. Waiting in line. Examples abound. If you don’t want to be using your phone all the time, you need to stop turning to it every time you get bored.

So, delete apps on your phone that exist for entertainment. Start with anything that has a short-form video feed: TikTok, Instagram, YouTube. Long-form video apps can go too. If you stop there, you’ll find yourself reading a lot of text. Delete other text-based social apps like X, Threads, Bluesky, Reddit, etc. You might need to get rid of news apps. I had to go so far as disable my entire browser, because I was still in the habit of opening news sites in Safari.

Nearly every app in the store wants you to use it for as long as possible, because, like smart TVs today, they make money by showing you ads. Most of these apps are highly entertaining. Remember that that’s not the reason you use your smartphone, and delete them.

If you’d like to make exceptions or opt back in to certain apps, do it at your own risk. I leave Letterboxd on my phone so I can log movies, but sometimes I still find myself scrolling around on it for longer than I intended.4

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Footnotes

  1. Omdia ↩

  2. I use the sleep focus at night. ↩

  3. Maybe you disagree, but this is a list of my principles. ↩

  4. I also haven’t discussed audio. I listen to audiobooks, podcasts, and music on my phone. I’m still not sure how (or whether) this habit fits into my broader framework. I’m not doing it constantly or compulsively, so that assuages some of my fears. It could be because I only listen to audio in specific contexts: mostly driving and exercise. ↩