One month phone-free: Young Americans try digital detox

"I was waiting for a bus, and I didn't know when it would come," recalled Jay West, 29, who took part in the Month Offline challenge organized by a small startup with support from a local community group.

Old habits die hard, and West, who works as a data analyst for Washington's metro system, said he would often find himself reaching into his pocket for his cell phone, only to realize there was nothing on it. 

But in the end, he said, it was liberating.

"I was bored sometimes, and that's okay," West recalled one recent evening at a city community garden where detox participants met to share their struggles and joys of disconnecting. "It's okay to be bored."

Sitting beside him was Rachael Schultz, 35, who had to ask strangers on bicycles for directions. There was also Lizzie Benjamin, 25, who dug out old CDs her father had burned so she could listen to music without Spotify.

Before the detox, Bobby Loomis, 25, who works in real estate, struggled to watch even a single episode of a TV series without checking his phone.

But now, without his headphones, he enjoyed listening to birds sing as he took walks around Washington. And when the detox ended, his daily screen time dropped from six to four hours, roughly in line with the average for American adults.

— 'Enriching, communal, social life' —

Scientists have long been sounding the alarm, warning that cell phone addiction is associated with shortened attention spans, sleep problems and anxiety.

In a landmark ruling in late March, a California court ruled Instagram and YouTube are liable for the addictive nature of their platforms.

An increasing number of young Americans are finally taking note. According to a YouGov poll conducted last year, more than two-thirds of people aged 18 to 29 would like to reduce their screen time.

And new tools are available to make that happen: digital detox apps, phone-blocking gadgets, and groups, such as the one in Washington, that facilitate month-long detoxes. On university campuses, weeks-long social media diets have become popular and screen-free evenings among friends have become a thing in big cities.

Going smartphone-free even for a couple of weeks leads to "better well-being and improved ability to sustain attention," said Kostadin Kushlev, a psychology researcher at Georgetown University.

Preliminary studies suggest those effects persist over time, he added.

Josh Morin, one of the organizers of the detox programs in Washington, believes that simply ditching the phone is not enough and that an appealing alternative is vital. His program involves a weekly discussion session for participants held at a karaoke bar in a trendy neighborhood of the US capital.

"In order to actually break that, you have to provide an enriching, communal, social life," said Morin.

— 'At the beginning of something' —

The Month Offline initiative was launched a year ago by a company called Dumb.co. It costs about $100 per person to participate and the fee covers the loan of a flip phone pre-loaded with a handful of essential tools, such as phone calls, texts and Uber, that are synchronized with the user's smartphone.

So far the startup has been making baby steps, hoping to surpass the 1,000-user mark in May, but experts see a bigger trend.

Graham Burnett, a history professor at Princeton University, sees "the dawning of an authentic movement," similar to the birth of the environmental movement in the 1960s, which led to landmark environmental protections.

Kendall Schrohe, 23, who works at a digital privacy watchdog, completed the monthly detox in Washington in January.

She can now navigate her neighborhood without relying on Google Maps, has deleted Instagram and launched her own digital sobriety group.

"I take an optimistic lens, and I feel like we're really at the beginning of something," she said.

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