Unplug: How to Break Up with Your Phone and Reclaim Your Life

Journalist Simon debuts with a commonsense manual for setting healthier boundaries with one’s smartphone. After becoming a parent in 2016, the author, sensing that his phone had become a distraction from “the realities of life” with his wife and kids, turned it off altogether—a yearlong experiment that bolstered his relationships with his family. Using this test case as a springboard, he explains how smartphones hijack the brain’s reward system by triggering a release of dopamine when the screen is tapped—incentivizing constant checking and making it tougher to engage in higher-lift dopamine-releasing activities such as reading, exercising, or gardening. He details how to detox from one’s phone to allow the brain to reset its reward pathways; grapple with withdrawal symptoms; find new sources of dopamine; and more responsibly reintegrate the phone into daily life. While the scientific explanations of dopamine’s role in smartphone addiction feel well-worn, readers will benefit from Simon’s straightforward, step-by-step approach, interspersed with useful sidebars on such topics as why well-meaning “digital hacks,” like deleting social media apps, are mostly ineffective. Readers uncomfortable with how much they’re glued to their devices will be inspired to break free. (June)

Correction: A previous version of this review incorrectly stated the author switched his smartphone for a flip phone.