The New Habit Challenge: Can A Digital Detox Make Room For Big Ideas?
Join our resident habit expert Rachel Gillett, other Fast Company staff, and WNYC's Manoush Zomorodi on Tuesday, February 10 at 11 a.m. ET as we discuss what happened when we put down our phones and embraced boredom.
How often do you clutch your phone as you walk down the street or quickly swipe through Facebook or Twitter standing in line? Without even realizing it, many of us are constantly connected to our phones and denying ourselves those moments of boredom our brains deserve.
While boredom may seem like a waste of time, Manoush Zomorodi, host of WNYC’s New Tech City podcast, says that we need these moments to tap into some of our most creative thinking.
While we love our technology, there are ways to use it more thoughtfully. In an effort to create more phone-free time to space out, we've teamed up with Zomorodi to complete her Bored and Brilliant challenge.
Here’s how it works:
Before The Challenge
If you’re using an iPhone, download the Moment app, and if you’re using an Android phone, download the Break Free app.
Before you start the challenge, just use your phone like you always do. These apps will show you how much you use your phone before the challenge as a baseline and help track your progress throughout the week.
Day 1: Monday, February 2, “In Your Pocket”
Keep your phone tucked away while walking down the street or in transit.
Day 2: Tuesday, February 3, "Photo Free Day"
Just say no to Instagram; take no pictures today. See the world for a day just through your eyes, not through your phone’s screen.
Day 3: Wednesday, February 4, "Delete That App"
Choose the app that you are most addicted to and waste the most time on and delete it.
Day 4: Thursday, February 5, "Take a Fauxcation"
Schedule an away message telling the world you are focusing on off-line projects. Even just for an hour spend time completely away from your phone. You can take this to the next level by unplugging completely, ignoring all your communication devices including laptops and iPads.
Day 5: Friday, February 6, "One Small Observation"
Take your newfound phone-free time and notice something you would have missed before.
Day 6 and 7: Saturday, February 7 and Sunday, February 8, “Get Creative with Nina Katchadourian”
Get bored and take on a creative task, inspired and guided by artist Nina Katchadourian, who uses boredom as her muse. Nina will reveal your creative task early Saturday morning, so be sure to check out the New Tech City podcast that day for more details.
For this week's habit challenge we'll venture into the realm of boredom and creativity with Zomorodi. Join us here on Tuesday, February 10 at 11 a.m. ET when she'll share the results of her Bored and Brilliant challenge, and find out how it went for us, share your thoughts, and ask us questions.
Did you detox from your phone to let more creative thinking in? Tell us about your experience in the "make a comment" box below and join in the discussion on Tuesday.
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Hi, everyone! I’m Rachel, editorial assistant here at Fast Company and resident habit challenge expert. I’ll be hosting the chat today with some other FastCo. staff, as well as our special guest Manoush Zomorodi, host of WNYC's New Tech City podcast. Manoush will be chatting with us today about her Bored and Brilliant challenge, which we took up as last week’s habit challenge.
We’ll be getting started in about 10 minutes, so get your questions ready! -
We’re all set to begin, and I’ll kick things off by introducing our staff who participated in this week’s habit challenge, Co.Design Associate Editor Shaunacy Ferro and Production Associate Miriam Taylor. Welcome guys, and welcome to Manoush Zomorodi of WNYC’s New Tech City, who’s joining us for today’s discussion. Thanks for participating in today’s chat!
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Boredom gets a bad rap. This is in some part due to numerous past studies that claimed people with "boredom proneness" lacked excitement and became easily frustrated or weary in challenging situations.
But recent studies are dispelling this myth.
Researchers now believe that allowing yourself to be bored is one of the best ways to create the space and time necessary to find deeper meaning and satisfaction. -
The Science Behind How Boredom Benefits Creative Thought
Fast CompanyRecent studies show that a little boredom in your day opens up the potential for more creative thinking.
More on boredom’s connection to creativity here. -
Yeah, Rachel, neuroscientists call the brain network that we use for mind wandering "the default mode"...it's where our most original thoughts and problem solving happens. Also, mental time travel!
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Manoush, that's where your Bored and Brilliant challenge comes in. Can you tell us about how you came up with last week’s daily challenges?
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I noticed I hadn't been bored in about 7 years: NOT SINCE I GOT A SMARTPHONE!
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So I wondered if this was a bad thing and consulted scientists who told me yes, mindwandering is important but there was NO research as to the direct issue with smartphones disrupting that.
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So my team and I decided to take matters into our own hands with a campaign that would explore a link between spending less time looking at a little screen and more time being creative. I came up with a week of daily challenges to experiment with what could get us off our phones and spend more time thinking creatively.
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During the challenge you had participants check in on how things were going. Can you tell us what were some of the reasons people signed up for this challenge?
FastCo. guys, apart from me bugging you to participate, why did you want to get involved? -
70% of those we surveyed said that they signed up because they just wanted more time to think. Pretty amazing. They also wanted to stop all the mindless checking that we all do as we go throughout our day.
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Btw, we asked listeners to download apps (Moment for iOS and Break Free for Android) that monitored how much time they spent on their phones and how many times a day they checked their phones. The Moment and Break Free developers, who were happy to partner with us.
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I started noticing last year that I was spending waaaay too much time on my phone, and it was driving me crazy. I wasn't as focused, I didn't feel creative, and I felt like I was constantly plugged in, jumping from app to app. I needed a reason to take a break!
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Rachel, you and I talked about this the other day, but I realized how often I was swiping at my phone without remotely paying attention to what I was doing. It was pure muscle memory and pretty terrible. I'd be on the commute and then realize a half-hour later I'd been staring at the same Instagram post without even really reading it. No time for a brain-break. I needed to detox in a major way.
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If you're curious, we actually asked people why they signed up at the beginning. They said things like "I know I will be full of regrets about the role the iPad played in my life when I'm running out of days." Heavy stuff:
5 Reasons You Want to be Bored (and Brilliant)
WNYC"I know I will be full of regrets about the role the iPad played in my life when I'm running out of days." -
You were not alone, Shaunacy! Over 18k people signed up across the country. Families, high school classes, and entire offices joined the project as teams. The aggregated data they shared with us via our partner apps indicated that participants spent just under 2 hours a day on their phones before the week of challenges began.
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Overall, how did you guys do? Were you able to cut down your phone time?
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My baseline when I started the challenge according to the Break Free app was an average 1.5 hours on my phone. My average during last week’s challenge was 50 minutes. So that’s pretty good, right?
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I was surprised by how much just participating in the daily challenges cut down on my phone time. I went from spending about an hour a day scrolling and swiping to closer to 30-40 minutes.
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That's amazing, Rachel. The average decrease was 6 fewer minutes and 1 less pickup each day than our baseline. But I find this stat very powerful: people said they FELT BETTER: over 90% of people who filled out our post-challenge survey felt they had cut down on their phone use, either somewhat or a lot.
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I did really great towards the beginning of the week. My average was about an hour and a half. On Monday I was only on it for 9 minutes and on Tuesday only on it for 5, after that my minutes started to creep back up into the 60s, 70s, and 80s. I was traveling over the weekend and hated realizing how much time I spent on the phone in commute.
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We kept track through our partner apps (Moment and BreakFree) here, and we'll have more analysis in the weeks to come:
Bored and Brilliant by the Numbers
WNYCThousands of people are signed up to track their phone usage as they take the Bored and Brilliant challenges. Herewith we present the results by the numbers. -
Miriam, don't beat yourself up :) As long as you were purposeful about your usage and aware, I'd call that a win.
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Some people might consider 6 minutes less a little underwhelming. Why do you think even 6 minutes helped us feel better?
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I thought that 6 minutes was pretty lame too but a cognitive psychologist we spoke to told us that could be statistically very significant. Behavior is really hard to change so any decline could mean something big.
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Were there any interesting patterns or discoveries you observed by tracking the data?
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That's what we're talking about on tomorrow's episode - we've called in some experts to help us parse all the data!