Phone scrolling, binge watching, and needless online shopping are all examples of what Catherine Price, author of The Power of Fun, calls fake fun. These “fun impostors” can be tricky, because we associate them with relaxation, and we may very well lose track of time while we’re doing them. But fake fun is really just spacing out.
That’s fine if it’s what you mean to do, Price says, but spacing out won’t satisfy your soul the way true fun will. Fake fun is likely to leave you drained and dull, while true fun makes you feel energized and renewed.
We have skillful engineers to thank for how much of our time gets consumed by fake fun. Social media apps, including TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram, are designed to hold our attention. Scrolling has no automatic off-ramp. Likes and other notifications give us quick dopamine hits, convincing us that whatever is on the screen is more rewarding than what’s in the room.
All of this amounts to a state of distraction, which goes hand in hand with disconnection. MIT professor Sherry Turkle, author of Reclaiming Conversation, has pointed out how leaving a cellphone out on a table during a meal is likely to prevent the conversation from going too deep — when we know we can be interrupted at any moment, we stick to shallower topics.
“True fun and distraction are like oil and water,” Price adds.
She shares plenty of strategies for reclaiming your attention in a previous book, How to Break Up With Your Phone, such as putting a rubber band around your phone to make it more noticeable when you pick it up. You can also remove time-sucking apps from the home screen.
Overall, anything you can do to remain present — including noticing when you grab your phone to distract yourself — can help you stay in control of your own attention.
(For more ideas on how to break free from tech, visit “How to Break Free of Tech Addiction.”)
