You're listening to Life Kit from NPR.
Hey, it's Mariel.
I just got an alarm clock.
It has a radio feature, so I wake up to the sounds of NPR every morning.
Does it sound like I'm trying to suck up to my employer?
I promise I'm not.
Anyway, I did this because I was sick and tired of having my phone in my bedroom all night.
Even when I blocked certain apps, I'd still find something to look at on there.
Photos, old texts.
It's a bad habit, and it kept roping me in.
This is, of course, a very common experience.
Jose Briones is the author of Low Tech Life, a guide to mindful digital minimalism.
We all have this screen in front of us most of the time,
and then our offline life is relegated to a secondary place.
But the reality is that as humans,
we have lived in the offline default for so long that we crave it.
We miss it.
The alarm clock thing, by the way, is working really well for me.
And now I am craving more.
More freedom from smartphone tyranny.