How to Talk to People - An Experiment in Healing Attention

Episode Date: August 24, 2026

Of all the potential effects of using smartphones, the one that seems to inspire the most anxiety is what scrolling could be doing to people’s attention. On social media (ironically), many people express a desire to “heal” their attention spans from the damage they feel technology has done. They’re picking up on something real. In one 2025 study, researchers found that blocking the internet on people’s phones for two weeks led to improvements in sustained attention equivalent to reversing 10 years of cognitive decline. In this final episode of How to Touch Grass, host Julie Beck embarks on an experiment to see if she can heal her own attention span. Beck and co-host Natalie Brennan also hear from Jenny Odell, the author of How to Do Nothing and Saving Time, about how Odell’s antagonism for her phone actually helped her make peace with it, and  how nature can teach us to pay deeper attention to the world around us. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Tired of rage scrolling through AI slop and clickbait just to get a handle on today's news? Meet Npress, the algorithm-free news app that makes it fun and rewarding to stay informed. Track your media literacy and rediscover reality. Download today at inpress.app. That's I, N as in NewsNerd, Press. Two and five Canadians will hear the words you have cancer. That's why every step and dollar-raised matters. On September 19th, join thousands in Toronto for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation Walk.

Challenge yourself, friends, and family to walk 21 kilometers in support of life-saving research. Together, we can carry the fire and help create a world free from the fear of cancer. Register today at pmcfwalk.ca.ca. Are you happy with your relationship with your phone or are you not happy with it? I wish I could reduce some of the information. Instagram reeling, particularly at night, where it kind of go down the rabbit hole and it's like, oh my God, it's midnight. Oh, yeah, I've been there. It's like lost time.

You know, like, when the aliens come and they get you and then, like, they put you back down and it's just lost time. It has impacted my attention span. I get bored after half a paragraph of reading. Do you have a sense in your mind of, like, when you notice that you feel like your attention span was getting worse? Probably been, like, since the start of COVID, like probably in the last five years. The thing that kills me sometimes is how much I want to look stuff up in conversations. I still, like, constantly have a few books that I'm trying to read through and trying to rebuild attention or something like that.

I'm Julie Beck, a staff writer at The Atlantic. And I'm Natalie Brennan, a producer at the Atlantic. This is How to Touch Grass. Julie, attention is one of the biggest things we have. heard people talk about when they are renegotiating their relationship to their phone. Ironically, I feel like every time I go on social media these days, like, I see someone talking about how they're trying to heal their attention span from technology that they're currently using. Yes. And it's always that word, too, like heal. It's like we're sick or we're injured and

we must heal. Is it something that you've been worried about? I do worry about my attention sometimes. Like, every time I go to the gym lately, like, I forget to lock the locker that they have in the locker room. I put my stuff in there. I shut the door. And you don't lock? Then I guess I simply walk away. Huh. And I don't realize until I get back that, I mean, no one has taken my stuff luckily.

So it's all good, good Samaritans out there. But that has happened not once, not twice, more than twice. Yeah, I guess the way that the. attention span thing comes up for me the most is when I think about the number of hours that I spend on my phone. You're poor and your attention into that phone. Yeah, I see those as very interconnected. But I've also noticed that I very actively try not to think about it.

Like, I rush to swipe away the screen time notification every Sunday. Obviously, that anxiety points to the fact that I want to have a different relationship with my phone, right? What do you think has stopped you from actively trying to get that screen time down? I think it's scary to sit with ourselves when we have grown really accustomed to all the stimuli. Love stimuli. We talk a lot about, you know, looking at your phone as like a, it's a negative thing. And we talk about it in the negative, right?

Like, I want to do less of this thing. There's this thing that I do a lot. I want to do less of it. And there's, like, not as much talk about what I want to do more of. That's Jenny O'Dell, the author of How to Do Not. nothing. When that book came out in 2019, I remember at the time it was one of the first things I read that really raised a concern about what modern technology and social media were doing specifically to people's attention. So now it's seven years later. And I asked Jenny how her

thinking has evolved and how she's doing with her own screen time habits. I mean, I'm, look, I'm doing great. I'm so happy to hear it. I can't say the same. I'm okay. I'm okay. I'm okay. I'm with my relationship with my phone and screen time. So can you walk me through a little bit? Yeah, I would say, like, part of the attention economy is the selling of quick fixes. And, you know, habits, they form over time. They're, like, grooves, right? Like, they need to be sort of formed over time.

And so... Like, geologically. Yes, exactly. And I think, you know, if you try to say, like, cold turkey, it can be frustrating when you don't see immediate results. Yeah. Or even within a couple of months, right? And then in that meantime, there's all this uphill struggle of like your friends are still doing it.

You know, you need to be on Instagram to see this and that. And there's just muscle memory things, like things you're used to. You get up in the morning. You look at your phone. Like, these are just, that's hard, you know, like those things are really ingrained, especially I think if you're younger. I'm good now, but I just want to stress that, you know, it took some time. And in that time, there's a little bit of a leap of faith. Yeah.

I mean, I deleted TikTok off my phone for the. third or fourth time who's counting, but like you're saying the muscle memory of like the thumb going up and down, like has just transferred to Instagram, unfortunately. So we got to work on that. Yeah. I would say there's like honestly, you know, I'm almost 40, uh, actually standing like with your very heavy head, you know, like on your neck. When you get older, you start to notice the problems from that.

And it's like that is another kind of physical limit. I can't sit at a computer for that long without injuring myself. And then I think, you know, I really had to think about my relationship to the news was a really big one that I hadn't quite figured out when you're kind of scrolling, you're scrolling through it. You're not like really deeply engaging with any one particular issue. You're just seeing a list of bad things. And they're bad in all different kinds of ways. And they're terrible. Like even just sitting with one of those things produces this paralysis.

It's like in order to do something, you need an orientation toward the future. and a situation in which you feel that you have some agency. There are certain things that I have started to do in the last couple years. One of them is volunteering at a native plant restoration project every week. I've also been going to a lot of kind of repair fares, also kind of volunteering type things that are in person. Where you bring with like a broken like toaster or something and learn how to fix it, something like that?

Yeah, totally. When I'm there. There is no desire to look at my phone. Like it just, like, it's just so far from my mind. And it, like, has this weird lasting effect throughout the week, actually, because I had this experience that was so direct, that was so meaningful. And tell me what, like, what is the good thing about the repair cafe, about the, you know, weeding the native plants?

Like, what is the good thing? I think, you know, some of it is just recognition. I think we, as humans, you know, we want to be socially recognized, right? Like, we want to feel seen, we want to feel heard, we want to feel welcomed. You know, it's like cheers or whatever. Like, you want to walk into a room and have people, you know, like, hey, it's you. I know you. Like, I'm happy to see you, right?

Like, this is just kind of like a really basic thing that we want. And I kind of think that social media, especially early on, like, it's sort of the evil genius of it was that it was hijacking that. And so I feel like these are in-person events. I feel incredibly recognized and acknowledged. And then it's like when you feel, you're like, this is the real thing. It becomes very obvious what is not the real thing. That's a big part of it. And I think you're there, you have a shared project.

You're getting some traction with something, right? Instead of just this, like sort of constantly being washed over with information and not really having anything to grasp onto. For most people in this day and age, like totally going. without a smartphone just isn't possible or at least not practical. Like the infrastructure of society, you know, they've got the QR code menu at the restaurant. The stores are all accepting Apple Pay and Google Pay and so many websites like require you to receive a text and then put the code in to even get in there.

So trying to resist getting sucked into your phone just feels like resisting the inevitable sometimes. Have you found a way to resist? solve this tension for yourself? I live in the same society you're describing and I use my, you know, I just use my phone to pay for lunch before this. But then I put it away. I use the phrase standing apart as a way of kind of like a not leaving or believing in the fantasy of escape from something

and just sort of being like I kind of, I'm standing in a position from which I can see the thing. You're now running away from it. But I have critical distance. And I think about something like food, you know, you go to the grocery store. And, I mean, depending on the grocery store you're in, you kind of understand that 80% of the food in it is bad for you. Like, we're all, you kind of know that, right? Like, we're a, it's been that way long enough. You can stop me from getting the flaming hot Cheetos, but yes, I do know.

I do know. But it's just this understanding that that space is just not so. up for me to thrive. And I think that it's helpful to maybe transpose that to your phone. What is a phone? A phone is a communication device. What I want from this is communication. The apps, you know, social media in particular are not designed for you to thrive. They are designed for the opposite. These are actively bad for me and I won't feel good. Like for me, it's sort of a level of acceptance of like antagonism has been helpful. It's like I'm never going to have a peaceful relationship with that universe. And I'm just going to kind of like accept that and take what I need

and leave. You know, recently I hear so many people both online and in real life talking about healing their attention spans from the damage that they feel like technology is done. And I'm curious why of all the things you think people are worried about their attention. specifically? One would hope that what you pay attention to is what is important to you. That's an ideal situation. Not always the case. Right, exactly.

So if you're not paying attention to things that are important to you, there's something I think deeply unsettling about that on the level of identity. Because it's like, am I even who I am. Right? Like, am I who I want to be if I'm paying my attention to something that I don't feel I ever chose? Yeah. I think it really deeply affects people kind of like on the level of like self-control and their sort of understanding of their identity. Yeah. Well, it seems like the solution that many people have landed on for healing their attention span is just trying to be online less however they can.

So do you think that logging off is the answer or no? I think that the best approach personally is to just treat it as an experiment. Honestly, it makes it interesting. Like, I'm a curious person, you know, and I'm curious about myself and my own reactions to things, kind of being like, okay, I'm going to try this. I'm going to see what happens when I try this. Natalie, immediately after this interview, I really felt the it to do what Jenny said, to try an experiment. Uh-huh. And when I was thinking about how to do that, I remembered this study I had seen from 2025, where researchers blocked the internet on people's smartphones for two weeks.

Okay. And just doing that, they found that the improvement to people's sustained attention was equivalent to reversing 10 years of cognitive decline. After two weeks. After two weeks. That discrepancy feels huge. It's huge. So I tried the experiment on myself for two weeks.

Now, I didn't perfectly replicate the conditions of the 2025 study, to be clear. They blocked mobile internet using an app called 4. I used instead this device called a brick. Huge among my friends. Oh, your friends are all into it. Okay, so you know. So I used this device, I picked all the apps I was going to block, and you have to physically touch your phone to the device to unlock it.

Right. I tried to, you know, keep all of the things that would allow me to communicate with other people, and so I blocked all games, I blocked all social media, email, Slack, internet browsers, and most internet-connected apps. Okay. I blocked all of that for 23 hours a day. I was allowed one hour of non-bricked time if I needed it or wanted it, and I could do whatever I wanted on a computer, same as in the study. It was only the phone that was restricted. And how were you going to test this? So I got in touch with someone from that

2025 study, and they shared an attention pre-test with me and a self-report questionnaire. So I took those for a baseline. How long was the test? It felt like 1,000 hours. Totally. I think he told me it's actually like eight minutes. I did both of those things before I started the experiment, and then I took them again at the end of the experiment. And I agreed to record a little audio diary along the way. Captain's Log, day one. My phone has been bricked pretty much all day.

I've definitely been kind of low energy. I don't know if that's like dopamine withdrawal. I've definitely been carrying my phone around with me everywhere, even though there's not really that much for me to look at. Morning, it's day two. My husband is out of town right now, so it is daunting to have two of my biggest sources of entertainment. My husband and my phone unavailable to me at this time, but we persevere.

It is Saturday. It's my first, like, full weekend day. I ordered a big order of yarn. So I have a lot of knitting and crochet stuff to work on. Good morning. It's day five. I'm knitting right now. Joe and I went birding.

The one thing that I am noticing mood-wise is that I do feel pretty calm, like maybe more calm than usual. Okay, Julie, first check in. What off the bat did you think? you were going to do more of with your time that you didn't wind up doing. Using the phone as a phone as a communication device, right? Actually, like, calling my loved ones to catch up, you know, what the phone was invented for. Shout out Alexander Graham Bell.

But I think because I had blocked so much and I was getting more used to just not having my phone on me and in my hand at all times, I was just thinking about my phone less overall. Which was the goal. But I kind of come to think that as much as the distraction of the phone, like, has a cost, there's also a cost to putting more distance there because the phone is where the people are. It's interesting how much our relationship to our phones is intertwined with our relationship to others. Yeah. When we overuse our phones, that isn't good for our relationships. Mm-hmm.

And the way we use our phones is definitely influenced by other people. I think we don't realize how much of our habits are kind of live in other people. Like, think about it. Like, when do you pick up your phone? It's when the person you're talking to picks up their phone, right? Like, the person makes up their phone. Where are you going to do? Like, sit there, stare in a space.

Like, that habit, like, lives between people. It's so true because my friends will. you know, text me TikTok still, even though I am trying to get off TikTok. And then if I'm like, okay, I'll just watch the like Lord of the Rings meme that they sent me. Of course, my phone prompts me like, don't you want to download TikTok again? And so it is like sort of driven by like the relationship of wanting to see this meme. But I guess my bigger question is, is logging off to pay attention to something else in the real world actually better? Or is it just different? I always think about like, if you saw someone hiking and looking at their first,

phone, you could be like, that's so depressing. But then it's like, what if they're looking at eye naturalist? And they're like identifying a plant. There are good things on the phone. There are bad things on the phone. There are good things IRL. There are bad things IRL. Like one thing that you can say is that the sort of quality of attention that one often experiences on the phone, things like social media, is pretty narrow versus things, you know, off the phone. There are so many different kinds of experience, so many different scales of time, so many different scales of space. I love seeing movies in a movie theater. I'm like a movie theater junkie.

I love to see horror movies in a theater. Not me. So there's things like that, but then there's things like, you know, looking at a very small bird in your neighborhood or being at a like a table with a group of people and sort of and like being part of a conversation. Like these are all just so different. Like even if you think about your body in those spaces, It's so different.

And I think it's good to have a variety of different contexts for your attention. Like, I think that's probably healthy. We're going to take a quick break. But when we come back, how the way we think about our phones affects the way we use them. I think about it more as like when I look at it as an object, it looks like a tool. And it did not look like a tool to me before. It looked like a black hole. Like a portal to the underworld or something.

I don't know. Yeah. Plus, did Julie fix her attention span? The results of her experiment coming up. If you're trying to get news today, you'll find a lot of biased algorithms, rage bait, and AI noise. Thanks, social media. That's where inpress comes in. It's a social platform on top of factual journalism,

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Two and five Canadians will hear the words you have cancer. That's why every step and dollar raised matters. On September 19th, join thousands in Toronto for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation walk. Challenge yourself, friends, and family to walk 21 kilometers in support of life. life-saving research. Together, we can carry the fire and help create a world free from the fear of cancer. Register today at pmcf walk.ca.ca.com.com. To day six, I won't you freaking know it, I did the exact same thing at the gym again. Sure enough, I forgot to walk it again. I'm legitimately concerned.

But anyway, my attention is not fixed yet. Good morning. It's day seven of the experiment. My average screen time is down 74% from last week. I certainly haven't been like, you know, a perfect, like, screen abstinent person this week. I've watched plenty of TV. I have been able to, I think, focus a bit better. I read 200 pages of my book yesterday. I wonder how much of this could be achieved without such a reconnaeful.

I've been pretty surprised by how quickly I kind of like submitted. But yeah, just like the how quickly the cravings to like check my phone all the time really receded. Julie, day seven was midway through your experiment. What started to shift for you by that point? Did the way you think about your phone start to change? I think what you learn or at least right, learned when you block access to almost everything on your phone is that the phone is not just one thing. There's a lot of different stuff in there. Like, you know, I think in our frustration with

our attention spans sometimes, people, myself included, will demonize the phone as a device. Like, smartphones are evil. Smart phones are sucking our life force and they're making us stupid and that kind of flattens the problem, I think. What kept coming up for me is there's a lot of different things I turn to my phone for, and some of them are more problematic than others. Like, checking the weather is very helpful. You made a mistake in blocking that one. I did. Like, I realized that actually the first day. But I suppose that is the point of the experiment, right? To figure out which parts of my phone are actually adding to my life and which are taking away from it. Jenny, have you heard of these devices that block certain apps on your phone?

There's like the Freedom app, the unplug, the brick device. What do you think of the recent popularity of these things? Honestly, I'm all for it. I don't use any. I'm not trying to brag. I don't need them. I think they're great. There's one in particular that I think is called social focus.

And it lets you kind of change the appearance of websites. Like you could go to YouTube and not see the auto suggestions, for example. Or maybe like not see comments. Like it kind of allows you to change what you see. And I think like there was a Chrome extension that came out called News Feed Eradicator. And guess what happened? I stopped going to Facebook. And it's, I didn't decide to do that.

It was because the news feed is there to keep you on Facebook. So if you eradicated. replace it with some sort of like mindfulness quote you you go to the site it's inert it can't grab you in that way and so i just simply stopped going it was like a totally unremarkable thing i didn't even tell anyone oh i'm quitting facebook i just stop going to it and i think that's really powerful so that's why i'm like i'm a big fan of of anything that can give someone sort of granular control over what it's sort of reintroduced choice in areas where people have never experienced choice because that in and of itself will cause someone to reflect upon what it

is that they want. All of this reminds me of a study I've been thinking about a lot lately that found using an app that was similar to the brick for two weeks had such a big effect on people's attention span that it amounted to like reversing 10 years of cognitive decline. Oh my God. Which seems really huge. Wow. That's incredible.

I am surprised and not surprised. Actually, honestly, this reminds me of like ecological. restoration because when you restore a site there's some some things come back quickly and some things don't right like you restore a wetland some species are going to come back almost immediately the nutrient cycling of the entire site might take 100 years maybe our attention is similar in that or our behavior let's say like it takes a long time to totally overhaul something but at the same time I think you might be surprised at how quickly certain things change like in times when I was a little bit more like embroiled online and using my phone a lot and then I would

you know maybe go somewhere put it away for a while or whatever I found that like after a couple of days I would notice that my attention felt different and by attention felt different I mean like I would notice details or like small differences and things that's almost like having a higher resolution image or something are there other like seemingly small changes to your routine that you feel like might have that kind of big cognitive benefit? You know, I think trying to like replace habits with other habits, I meditate in the morning only just for like 10 minutes. I kind of like calm down to a level where then it's not going to as easily occur to me

to then pick up my phone or at least I'll be a little bit more reflective about it. Yeah. My thing so far, my recent thing has been taking up knitting and crochet. And this seems like so small. But it's like now while I'm watching TV, instead of looking at my phone, I'm like, my hands are in hand jail, right? I'm doing knitting. And it doesn't seem like so virtuous when I'm like, now I'm only looking at one screen. But I feel like, you know, it's an improvement. I think that's great. Maybe I'll get down to zero screens, TBD. The other layer to that that I was just thinking about when it comes to phones and social media and stuff is like a lot of times where I'm going to like learn.

how to do this new stitch or whatever is YouTube. So I, it's not, you know, one is totally replacing the other, but like there is sort of a relationship. Like now I am using that tool kind of like for this other thing. Yeah. Right. And I think that points to an important distinction, which is maybe, maybe a bit more nuanced than just like just say screen time as a statistic. You know, you were asking earlier about my like change relationship to my phone I think about it more as like when I look at it as an object it looks like a tool and it did not look like a tool to me before it looked like a black hole to the underworld or something yeah or like I were frankly like I wasn't even looking at it I'm already picking it up like I'm already in there I'm already in that world there wasn't even a point

where I perceived the phone as an object yeah you know and now I feel like like, you know, the things that I use it for the Merlin app, it's like Shazam for bird songs, I use that, I use I naturalists, I use the Constellation app, voice memos for, you know, like recording birds, that relationship to me feels really different because the intention and the purpose, I feel like I'm in control of that. I mean, on my phone, the first home screen is all what I would call observational apps. So, like, camera, voice memo, I naturalist, Merlin. I'm kind of trying to remind myself of how I want to use the phone. Like, I now associate my phone with those activities. You write a lot about nature. Yeah. Being inspired by nature, how being in nature

helps you, you know, pay attention. A common piece of advice for those who have been brain rotted by the internet is to go touch grass. So are you also telling us? us to touch grass? Yeah, pretty much. And I mean, the weeds that I weed at my weekly project are grass. So actually, I'm saying kill grass. No, I'm just kidding. But the reason I think it became such a, that phrase caught on was because like it's just

so obviously true. The obvious truth of it is like why it's funny and annoying at the same time. Yeah. What is it that you think the natural world has to teach us about attention? Complexity, basically. Like, I think it's like the, it's a masterclass in complexity. It is kind of an antidote to the idea of the easy answer, which I think, I really, I, I really blame Instagram for, for the oversimplification of political issues. Like, personally, that is just my ax to grind.

And, and the idea that you could sort of absolve yourself by reposting something is just like, yeah. I just like it's upsetting to me but I think there's no easy answers to anything like if you are a birder and you like birds guess what you're gonna have to learn about trees you know and then then you're gonna have to learn about like seasons and then

I don't know there's just all like everything is so tied to everything else and there are so many things that are sort of like neither good nor bad or sort of arguable we need lessons in that right now like we need lessons in the sort of like let me pick a point in space to look at and then let me look at the context around that. Okay, now let me look at the context around

that. And now you've like sort of widened into this whole ecosystem. Like that, I think the opposite of that is what happens online. So, Jenny, if someone is just starting to rethink the relationship they have with their devices, what advice would you give them? Try to take an outsider's perspective on yourself. I'm a big journaler, so like I've kept journals since I was a kid. So that would work for me. Like, I would look at my phone. I would look at some stuff on my phone. And then I would just write down, like, kind of what it was, and then I how I felt about it.

You know? And I would be, like, brutally honest. Oh, man. Just, yeah. Just pretend like you're a scientist and just talk to a friend about it. You could write it down, like, whatever. But, like, you know, I think there needs to be that, like, every so often you step to the side and you go. okay, what did I just do?

Like, why did I do that? How did that make me feel? It could be super brief about it. Just do it for a week, you know? Like, just see what it tells you. Yeah. Before you try to make any changes, because the danger is that a person feels shame, they feel that it's bad.

They're like, okay, I need to change this. And then they try really hard to change it, and then it doesn't go the way they wanted, and then they feel more shame. And now it's just like a spiral. Yeah, I think especially with attention for whatever reason, And it's just like, it does feel very shameful. This like, oh, I can't focus.

Like, I can't pay attention. I can't even, like, read a book without having the desire to pick up my phone. Yeah. People think it means that they're a bad person. And it doesn't. You just got to be patient and try a bunch of different things. And, like, you know, maybe it'll be more interesting than you think. Guys, huge news.

Huge news. I locked my gym locker today. Nature is healing. I am the virus. For once in my goddamn life, I locked my gym locker. It is day 13. I was on a computer all day for work because computer is where the money comes from. And still screen fatigue yourself. The old-fashioned way.

Captain's log, the final full day of the experiment. Over the past two weeks, I read one full novel. I started two other books. I finished an audiobook. I crocheted a little hat. I watched all of the first season of The Traders. It's not like I, you know, found myself with a magical abundance of time. I think it's more like I just paid more attention and spent more time doing the things that I already like to do.

That was time mostly well spent, so attention mostly well spent. Julie, when you set out to go on this experiment, you got in touch with one of the researchers from the 2025 study, Kostadine Kuslev, from Georgetown University, who agreed to go over the results of your post-experiment attention test with us. Yes. And before we call him up, are you nervous about your results? not so nervous about these results? Will it mean less to you if your attention span didn't change on paper? I mean, I guess I'm a little nervous.

I mean, look, like, I am a nerd and I always want to get an A plus on my projects. But I really do feel better. And if it's just a placebo effect, well, a placebo effect is still an effect, right? Like, I'll take it. Okay, I'm going to dial Costa up. Hello. Hi, I'm Natalie. I'm Julie's producer.

I'm also going to be sitting in on this call. Hi, Natalie. Hey, Costa. It's Julie. How are you? Pretty good. How are you doing? I'm doing okay.

So can we just dive right in and tell me, before I started the experiment, how was my baseline attention span? So your core was about three, three. Is that good? Good, good for average 35 year old? Good. I mean, essentially, you did about how our participants did. It's a little closer to the level. You might see young adulthood or somebody in their 60s.

Okay, humbling, humbling. Yes, yes. But, you know, but once we get to your post score. Yes, let's do it, the big reveal. Yes. What changed? So your post score was actually hugely better. So it was 3.8.

Eight, that is much bigger improvements than we saw an average in our study. So your improvement is about four to five times bigger than what the average participant in our study gains. Go Choli. Write it down, Natalie. I'm taking notes. Yeah. So you did really well on that. Amazing, I think.

Is 3.1 to 3.8 good? Have I reversed my cognitive decline, or how would you characterize that? basically off the chart. But it might take a while to reap the benefits of this improved attention. Right. And it'll probably go away if I just start scrolling Instagram again. Right. Yeah. Certainly not a permanent increase. But I do like to point out that, you know, just taking a two-week break and not even a complete break from your phone, just sort of like reducing your use can actually improve that ability to sustain attention. because, you know, our lives are just, like, so tied to these devices. So sometimes the question might be like, you know, have we, like, essentially permanently damaged our, you know, brain?

Like, have we changed our neurobiology and so forth? And so this seems to suggest that, no, there is a way out. So it might be worth doing some of those digital detox interventions. Thank you so much, Costa. It was great chatting with you. All right. Thank you. Bye-bye.

Bye. Julie, how do you feel about that? Unbearably smug? No, no, no. I'm just kidding. No, I feel relieved, honestly. Like, even if the true effect size isn't as big as it seemed, because I am just one person, it's not, you know, a full scientific study, it still feels really good to know that it's possible to improve so quickly.

Right. So it's actually kind of wild that you can do something as simple as this and like bounce back so quickly. Are you going to keep using the brick? Like, how are you feeling about where's your relationship at between you and your phone right now? My relationship with my phone is cordial. We're not, it's not warm, but it's not cool. We're cordial.

We're friendly acquaintances. That sounds like how people describe their exes. Yeah. Well, we haven't broken up. It's really, it's a situation ship that is ongoing forever. No, I'm definitely going to continue using the brick, and I have been still 23 hours a day, you know, maybe not. Yeah. I have been bricking my phone at a minimum, like, before bed, so I can't doomscroll right before I sleep,

and I can't look through my emails or Instagram the second that I regain consciousness. Yeah. So that does help. But I would say that throughout this, I kept thinking about my favorite poet, Mary Oliver, And one thing that she wrote was, to pay attention, this is our endless and proper work. That's beautiful. So this season, I think, what I've learned is your attention is your life. Yeah.

And I think on some level I knew that already. But after this experiment, I've really been feeling it. Yeah, we started this season because we wanted to understand why so many people were feeling the pull to log off, right? we've explored a lot of the ways in which the internet can pull you into thoughtless patterns, whether it's the way Instagram makes us feel bad about our bodies or the way that AI chatbots can send us into an anxious spiral. But it seems like what we're maybe actually looking for right now is ways to be more thoughtful. Yeah, I wanted to feel more thoughtful about my life.

I wanted to not feel as much like I'm literally giving my life away to things. I don't even care about. I wanted to stop nickel and dimeing the moments of my life away. Being intentional about where you give your attention. That's all for this season of How to Touch Grass. This episode was hosted by me, Julie Beck, and co-hosted and produced by Natalie Brennan with production help from Elena Schwartz.

Our editors are Claudina Bade and Jocelyn Frank. Fact-checked by Hezella Salim Pire. Our engineers are Rob Smerciag and Miguel Catascal. Rob also composed some of the music for this show. The executive producer of audio is Claudina Bade, and the managing editor of audio is Andrea Valdez. How To will be back with the new season soon. Two and five Canadians will hear the words, you have cancer.

That's why every step and dollar raised matters. On September 19th, join thousands in Toronto for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation walk. Challenge yourself, friends, and family to walk 21 kilometers in support. of life-saving research. Together, we can carry the fire and help create a world free from the fear of cancer. Register today at pmcfwalk.ca.ca.