I was horrified. This was not the impression I wanted my child to have of a human relationship, and it also wasn't how I wanted to be living my own life. I decided in that moment that I needed to break up with my phone and create a new relationship with better boundaries. It was 2016, and I couldn't find a book that examined why our phones are so compelling and what effects they have on us, let alone one that offered a solution. So I decided to write it myself. What I learned changed my life and I hope it might do the same for you.
These apps are part of what's known as the attention economy, in which it's our attention (and data about what we are likely to pay attention to) rather than goods or services that's being sold. In this economy, we are not the customers of these apps; advertisers are. We are, essentially, the product, manipulated into giving our most valuable asset our attention away for free.
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