I feel like the hardest part of learning to do nothing is getting over an initial period where your body and mind is trying to remember how to fill an hour of i

I feel like the hardest part of learning to do nothing is getting over an initial period where your body and mind is trying to remember how to fill an hour of idle time without Instagram or Twitter or Facebook. Which reminds me the first time I did a longer silent meditation retreat. Even though this was before the smartphone age, I missed listening to music, talking to people, reading the news, etc. Basically any strong sensory perception. Once you are over the hump and accept these cravings, it becomes easier and you find a certain 'lightness' in not having to react to every emotion immediately. Since last year or so I have become more conscientious about my smartphone use. And I have tried to curtail use a fair bit. Since smartphones are often genuinely useful (navigation, occasional messaging, music) I didn't want to stop cold turkey. Also, to me it is more interesting to learn to break the addiction while still being able to use a phone responsibly. I removed all games from my phone and most social media apps. All those moments where you'd normally take out your phone have become so much nicer: there are more opportunities to rest your mind, pick up small conversations with people, etc. Besides the addictiveness of phones, the other problem of social media is that everything has become a reputation game. The other day, I saw a video of Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder just wandering around a park in Seattle in 1992. People recognized him, would come up to him and they'd just chat. Some people would ask an autograph, but that's it. As someone pointed out in the comments, this would not be possible anymore today. If a somewhat famous person would be recognized, people would focus more on getting the perfect pic for Instagram likes than actually connecting with a real person. Similarly, when I was a teenager, we would just go to concerts, fool around, kiss, play guitar miserably, all the things that teenagers do, without the need to continuously document our perfect party life or being aware of the risk that someone might film you when you do something stupid. We were much freer than kids are now.