The 2024 election pushed some people to put down their phones more and tune out of the news. But author Catherine Price started thinking about breaking up with her phone years ago, after realizing she was focusing on it instead of her newborn daughter.

“Our devices and their apps are designed to fragment our attention, whether it is taking us out of our real-life experience and getting us to focus our attention even momentarily on the phone itself or it's what we do within apps where we are looking at different pieces of content in a particular feed,” Price told “Post Reports” co-host Elahe Izadi.

After realizing how detrimental her phone was to her life, she wrote “How to Break Up With Your Phone: The 30-Day Plan to Take Back Your Life.” The book details the negative impact our phones can have on our attention and mental health and provides advice for how to create a healthier relationship with them.

“It really has made me feel more alive,” Price said. “It encouraged me to ask questions that have resulted in me tapping into this broader community of people I never would have met and discovering this joy.”

Today’s show was produced by Sabby Robinson. It was edited by Lucy Perkins and Maggie Penman and mixed by Sam Bair.

You can find more writing by Price at her Substack here.

Subscribe to The Washington Post here.

How to reset your relationship with your phone

Post Reports