I don’t have as much to say as the author, but I’ve been doing this since June last year. I like it. I don’t have plans to switch back either. I have my watch m

I don’t have as much to say as the author, but I’ve been doing this since June last year. I like it. I don’t have plans to switch back either. I have my watch maybe 95% of the time. I use my phone very rarely and I find I’ve come to dislike it. I’ve got particular reasons for that, though. Not everyone will come to the same conclusion. Like the author, I was using my phone too much. I got the watch as part of the ongoing effort to curb the abuse. It worked exceptionally well in this regard, but it was helped tremendously by my insights into just how much I was missing out on by using my phone too much. Watching my screen time reports drop induced a special kind of shame. I went through periods where I was hitting 3.5 to 4 hours in a day. I used it around my kids too often. I gapped out on it without realizing it. I was a paragon of the unexamined life. So, if you don’t have the same issue then the watch might not serve the same purpose or yield the same returns. As far as what the watch can do, frankly I don’t give a shit anymore. I’m in the camp now that I more or less grew up in. I never had this stuff and I was fine without it. At times, I was better off without it. I like timers and reminders, otherwise texting and phone calls are the primary reason it’s on my wrist. I’m glad I made the switch, but it’s definitely not suitable or otherwise necessary for everyone. If you’re a slave to impulse like myself, give it a shot. Put your phone in a cupboard and leave the house. Retrain your brain to do more with less. Edit: Something mentioned in the article is the difference between phone screen time and computer screen time. It’s quite remarkable in my experience. I’ve come to think of it like the healthy association of sleep and bedrooms, though. For example, I’m conditioned to think of my computer as my place of work, research, and learning. Sometimes it’s for play, but that’s highly regulated for all kinds of reasons (it helps that I can’t pull a Mac Studio and 32” monitor out of my pocket at any given time or location). Over the years I’ve taught myself that a computer isn’t for wasting time. On the other hand, the phone was rarely anything other than that. The parallel here is that a treatment for insomnia which sometimes works is retraining yourself to think of your bedroom as a place of sleep rather than anxiety, phone use, tv or movie watching, etc. You only allow yourself to sleep there and do all other activities elsewhere in the hope that over time, your bedroom provides the set and setting which encourages and supports a restful state. I suspect similar mechanisms are at work here, and if so, I’m grateful because being productive on a computer is what keeps bills paid here. Had that association not been cultivated early, my life could be a lot different. Similarly, I suspect we should be very careful about allowing ourselves (and our kids) to associate phones with slacking off, spacing out, doom scrolling, etc.