Putting your phone in a little cloth bag at the door is funny. Also smart. Like taking candy away from a toddler before dinner.
NYU ran a long-table, phone-free dinner. Cold night. Cobblestones. Blankets and handwarmers. And somehow, 200 strangers managed to talk. Philosophy. AI. Shanghai. The radical act of making eye contact.
I’m into it. I’m also allergic to the simple story: screens bad, humans good. The screen is just glass. The problem is the addictive, extractive business model living inside it. The part engineered to hijack your reward system, sell your attention, and keep you scrolling like it’s your job.
So yes, make phone-free spaces. Create little sanctuaries for conversation and silence. But don’t pretend a ban is the same as wisdom. If the only lesson is “don’t touch,” we skip the part where people learn how to touch the thing without getting burned.
I’m the guy who sucks about screen time. I get the urge to forgo the algos. I wrote this on an a boox tab x e-ink device because I am so suceptible to the colors and the flashes I had to go for ultra low refresh rates and monochrome. I couldn’t be happier, by the way, playing in my digital garden. It’s so easy to forget there are people who AREN’T consumed at all times by their little devices.
Yoga doesn’t make me into a person who isn’t suceptable to the wiles of addictive media. It’s a pro-awareness that gives me a heads up when cooler heads don’t seem like they’re going to preail. So, yeah, by all means, bag the phone for an hour. Then unbag your brain. Ask: who profits from my distraction? And how do I practice attention—on the mat, at the table, and in my pocket?