My Plan for 2020: More Time With My Phone - The Wall Street Journal

Jan. 24, 2020 9:00 am ET

It’s still January, my friends, so technically, I still have time to make a bold New Year’s resolution. I promise it’s not another fruitless pledge to hit the gym (so boring!), eat better (yuck!) or read more books (zzzz!). And I don’t want to be a kinder human in 2020—I’m kind enough, you ingrate jerks.

Likewise, I’m not going to learn a new language; you all know I can barely manage comprehensible English. I’m not going to visit a new country, call my mother twice a day or stop singing Dean Martin songs in line at the post office.

No. My New Year’s resolution is simple: I’m going to spend more time with my phone.

Yeah. Why not? Everyone’s beating up on smartphones these days—how they’re ruining attention spans, civility, sleep and our lives in general. Once regarded as wonders of innovation—something to be shown off in public, like a magic bunny popping out of a top hat—phones are now a great cultural villain, modern enemy No. 1, technological handcuffs that should be ignored and unused almost all of the time.

“ I picked up my phone at my kid’s pre-K singalong, and people looked at me like I’d taken out a blood-splattered chain saw. ”

Every environment is getting in on the “phone free” fad: movie theaters, churches, restaurants, weddings, soccer practices, operating rooms. Taking out a phone in these settings is seen as uncouth, vulgar, a signal of disinterest and distraction. Not long ago, I picked up my phone at my kid’s pre-K singalong, and people looked at me like I’d taken out a blood-splattered chain saw. Come on, people! Have you ever had to sit through a pre-K singalong?

Even workplaces—which have never cared about our personal well-being—are starting to frown on phones. Next time you’re at lunch with the boss, yank out your phone and scroll through your Instagram for 10 minutes. Just wait: The boss will be offended. And it’s a company phone! The boss is paying for it! Hypocrite.

And yet Luddism remains the rage. “Stop Spending So Much Time with My Phone” is really the “in” resolution for 2020. Even the Journal’s Tech Gandalf Joanna Stern is giving readers advice about how to curb phone use, which is like Jacques Pepin swearing off butter. I went into Joanna’s office recently, and she didn’t look at a phone once. And she has 2,300 phones.

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I choose to go in the other direction. I think the phone has gotten a little too beaten up. I’m going to show mine some more love. I think I’ll take my phone use up to 16 hours a day, then go for the full 24. I’m going to use my phone in places I’ve never used it before. The shower—phones are supposed to be waterproof these days, right? I will ignore the natural world. I will travel to Tuscany, find beautiful open fields—with vistas for miles—and check my Twitter feed until dusk. Tim Cook will send me a medal. And another phone.

Don’t sit next to me on a plane, a train or at the movies. I’m going to be a phone-checking nightmare. I’m going to ignore my family. I’m going to stop reading bedtime stories to my kids—at least bedtime stories in print. Those slackers should start reading to themselves (I’m tired of “Make Way for Ducklings,” anyway.) I’m going to put my phone on the nightstand—even though everyone says that’s a bad idea—and I’m going to check it at least 20 times a night. Sure, my sleep will stink, and my health will suffer—but when the president pecks out an indecorous tweet, I’ll know seconds before you.

I don’t get why this would be controversial. People say phones take away from human interaction—I say exactly! That’s the idea. I fail to see the problem. You know I’m right. You know this is perfect wisdom for the new year. Now somebody tell me where I put my phone.