Touch Grass — But Use Your Phone

Detoxing with the digital

While my introduction (which is actually in my conclusion — so, is it still an introduction?) isn’t exactly aligned with the point I’m trying to make, I couldn’t help but laugh at the irony of it. So in it goes.

It’s 2025. Nothing gets done without your phone, your laptop, or some other battery-powered, holier-than-thou mechanism.

We can deny it all we want — I’m self-sufficient, I don’t need a phone! — but you’d be lying to yourself. No, it’s not a want. You don’t just want your phone. You need it.

(I paused writing this to reply to someone. Yes, the irony is not lost on me. DMs now out of the way, we carry on.)

You’ve got calls to make, people to meet, things to do. And that’s fine. You’re not going to live much of a life if you just give up your phone — however counterintuitive to common advice that sounds.

So don’t give up your phone. Don’t villainise it. It’s a tool — that’s all. A tool that makes your life easier.

The problem is when it becomes your whole life.

That’s when the cycle kicks in — you convince yourself you’re doing something useful, but really you’re deep into TikTok, or Facebook, or whatever app suits your demographic. You tell yourself you’re “resting,” but you’re not — you’re just passively frying your brain.

“Doomscrolling” is an ugly word, but unfortunately, it sums things up pretty well.

So yeah, keep your phone in your pocket. Leaving it completely out of reach isn’t exactly feasible — lives to live, calls to take, etc.

Just leave the important notifications on. And then go take a walk. Touch grass. Look at the sun. It’s kind of funny how much you notice when you’re not counting pixels.

And yes, the irony here is that I wrote all of this on my phone, while walking through the park.

But maybe there’s beauty in that irony — something that only a walk through a field can tell me. With my phone in my pocket.

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