Smartphones and the Smartcross

Digital devices have a way of changing the way we manage our time and do things. Sometimes we forget that they’re supposed to serve us, not rule us. The Corinthian church had forgotten who it served. Have we?

Jake Knapp felt that his iPhone always absorbed his attention. For him, it was an occupational hazard, since he worked as a design partner with Google Ventures.

But in 2012, when his smartphone addiction started to encroach on time with his kids, he decided he had to do something. He deleted every app that distracted him: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. “It was a huge relief,” he says. Although he thought it would be a short-term experiment, those apps remained off his phone for the next six years.

Sarah Lawrence, a graphic designer, decided to make her phone experience unpleasant. “For two weeks I used my iPhone screen in color,” she says, “and for two weeks I used it in gray scale, which is designed to be irritating.” She found that gray scale reduced her usage and eliminated aimless scrolling.

Jake and Sarah are examples of tech addicts who have tried to break their smartphone addictions. They dumped a lot of phone usage to take back ...