For many millennials, our development was measured on the edge of a wall, with smudged lines marking our height and each date etched into the paint. For me, I only have to look back to the rise of technology, and the way technological innovations match perfectly to my growth.

We got a home computer shortly after Free Willy 3 was released on DVD. I was in sixth grade, and I googled “orca whales” and printed the search results (all 86 pages) in case I searched it again and couldn’t find it again. I got my first phone before my first school dance, well-timed for me to text my friends about plans. I got a laptop as a present for high school, and a smartphone the year I moved to NYC to college, the perfect time in my life to introduce a computer in your pocket to help me navigate the newness of a city and adulthood. A year later, I got a Blackberry Curve for my internship, teaching me quickly the illusion of work life balance. Being online thrilled me; I worked in digital advertising, after all, and used social media to scale my first nonprofit. In fact, my career has been propelled by moments of virality, making social media both a necessary way to connect with others and a requirement to my financial wellbeing. 

Even my hands have grown along these devices, from the Nokia 3210 to the iPhone 15 Pro Max I carry today. So have gaming consoles, moving from a Nintendo Game Boy to the larger, more sophisticated Switch. For decades, I’ve laid in bed playing on a device, darkness except for the screen, accessing an entire new world from maturing fingers.

My growth and development is so synced to technological innovations that I never questioned that relationship until last year, when my travel for magic and public speaking skyrocketed. Suddenly, I found myself using my phone constantly–to get to the airport, while waiting in security, while on the plane, to get to the hotel, to get to the venue, to order dinner, to pay for things, to contact the client, to promote the show, to keep up with work along the way, to catch to my friends...It became clear to me that everything and everyone I covet, consider, desire, and fear is lying beyond a screen. 

Obviously, screen time is not good for our well-being. Consistent screen time has been proven to increase risks of depression and anxiety, disrupt the body’s sleep cycles, reduce attention spans, and stunt our social development. They can also contribute to a lack of physical activity and cause pain in our eyes and smartphone-wielding hands. One study indicated that our perception of time changes when we’re on social media. Because we’re so hyper-focused on the present, moving so quickly through snippets of content, we feel time moves more quickly. It’s making more people feel as if life is speeding by. Addiction rates are high for both students and elders, showing how each generation has its own unique relationship with technology, but all seem to drive us to use it more and more.

Distancing ourselves from our devices wouldn’t just help us individually, but also act as a rebellion against the system. Keeping us there, online, disconnected, and often misinformed, we’re far more susceptible to replacing our cognitive process with someone else’s answers. Especially now with AI-generated search results, articles, and media–we’re consuming more content that wasn’t made by us, but for us in the voice of an intelligence controlled by a few companies in close relationship with the government. Once, the internet promised to connect us to diverse stories and voices from around the globe. Now, it’s difficult to access information without it being filtered to what digital platforms believe we need to see.

There’s obvious benefits to being online: access to communities, finding unfiltered information, using tools that make life easier–especilaly for marginalized communities. But by creating space, we reduce opportunities for someone to sell something to us, which has become more ubiquitous with social shopping integration and deceptive ads in the guise of user-generated content. By cultivating diligence, we can focus on using technology to curate a feed where we’re getting information that might be buried or obscured, and keep up to date with our communities.

As tech surveillance becomes more sophisticated, AI generated content becomes more difficult to discern, and digital repression grows, we have to know how to mobilize online and off. The future we’re building will require us to find more ways to have conversations for the greater good, to share information offline, and to gather and connect in real life.

This is easier said than done. Over the past year, I estimate that I’ve reduced my screen time by an hour, maybe two, each day. I’ve used apps and physical products to help force me to stay offline, but what’s worked best for me is shifting my behavior, not just limiting it. Instead, I choose the time I gain when I’m offline, and have learned to savor boredom, to practice daydreaming and play, to muse, and remember. It’s unlocked more abundance, opportunities to connect with people in real life, watch the sunset, or stretch. I know now that my liberation, and perhaps all of ours, is on the other side of the screen. And I’m so excited to keep unplugging myself as the year unfolds.

Some not-so-fun facts about the role of smartphones in our lives.

Digital detoxes have become increasingly popular, and capitalism is rising to meet it, creating apps designed to reimagine our relationship to smartphones. Here are some that are interesting to me.