living life in the real world

I've been really bad at answering messages this month. And it's been really working for me—and my relationships.

Normally, I am hyper-reachable. It might take me a day or so to get back to your text, but I always get back to you. While I would say this quality (in part) makes me quite good at maintaining long-term, long-distance relationships (I’m in regular contact with my childhood best friends, my college best friends, my post-college roommates, my first-job coworkers, my mom, etc.), it also significantly contributes to my daily stress and that mad-dash feeling of GO-GO-GO.

That, I’ve known for a long-time. But I’ve also recently realized just how much time these short but frequent check-ins cost me.

Forget about scrolling time, I mean checking incoming messages; immediately reading a drop-down email notification (even though I don’t intend on responding right then); and simply looking at my phone.

Now that I’ve been paying attention to it more, I spend an embarrassing amount of time simply picking up and looking at my phone. I’m not doing anything on it—just compulsively checking it. Like an insanely deranged person who either “just wants to be sure” they didn’t miss a notification (though I’m not deaf, so the chances of that happening are slim) or who is simply addicted to the motor movement of reaching over and flipping the small box perpetually planted to my right.

Am I the only one with this totally useless habit? It would seem not.

According to a survey from Reviews.org, Americans check their phones 205 times a day. The results also say:

• 80.6% check their phones within 10 minutes of waking up
• 76% look at their phones within 5 minutes of receiving a pop-up notification
• Americans spend 5 hours and 1 minute on their phones every day

Added up, that means the average American spends 2.5 months out of the year simply staring at their phone.

This is where I can let myself feel a little superior: For the past 6ish months (since I’ve turned on weekly reporting from Apple), my average phone time per day is about 1 hour and 15 minutes.

This is where I can let myself feel like a bag of trash: I am 100% guilty of looking at notifications almost as soon as I receive them. I also look at my phone as soon as I wake up. (It’s my alarm clock, and I can’t resist a check on all the notifications before getting out of bed.)

Like many others, I fear I am wasting my life staring at the screen.

That’s why I deleted all social media from my phone a few months ago. Even LinkedIn. Because after deleting Instagram and X, I coincidentally took on a newfound interest in the "professional" social media app and starting scrolling there when I needed to scratch the itch.

It has truly been life-changing. And this month I explored the next step(s): keeping my phone on do-not-disturb; only letting myself check it a handful of times per day; taking the time to respond to messages when I have the time/desire—not as soon as they come in.

I’m still talking to my friends. I’m still connected, still socializing. In fact, I would say I’m socializing more.

I’ve been going out more. My phone-less weekends have been full of IRL conversations and excursions in the city. My phone-less evenings have been spent enjoying cooking more—a task I normally find I don’t have enough time for.

And that’s my big revelation: Without constantly checking my phone, I’m amazed at how much more free time I have.

In fact, one reader wrote to me this month, saying:

I would say I am far from “doing it all.” I wrote this post in the beginning of the year about 5 Things I Want to Do Alone This Year; so far, halfway through the year, I’ve only done about 1.5 of them.

But my quest to live a more analog life is proving easier (and more pleasurable) than I had even anticipated. Cutting out screens is much like my philosophy on cutting out ads and learning how to stop wanting things: If you take just a few simple actions to remove them from your life, you won’t even notice they’re gone.

Because real life is so much better.

🌻 Welcome to A Merry Loner. Are you feeling lonely? This is the place for you to learn how to enjoy your own company—and your life. (The real one. Not the fickle online one.) We talk about:

• The Loner Mindset: fresh perspectives on learning to genuinely enjoy your own company.
• Books: reading lists and recommendations for people who love being alone with a good story—and don’t need a book club to enjoy it.
• Analog Living: analog habits and screen-free activities that remind you how to live a life offline.
• Solo Travel: solo travel itineraries, city guides, and essays on where to go and how to enjoy it alone.
• Mindful Consumption—ethical companies, Amazon alternatives, and intentional products for a simpler, less wasteful life.
• Loner Q&As—interviews with merry loners from around the world on how they’re creating meaningful, authentic lives that are true to themselves.

Not subscribed yet? Join for friendly reminders on how to enjoy life, IRL.

Posts You May Have Missed

🌻 Living Alone as a Woman: Why Every Woman Should Live Alone at Least Once​

From witty guest writer (and founder of The Ravenna Report), Isabel Ravenna ponders the question: “What happens when a woman builds a life that belongs solely to her?” READ​

🌻 Solo Travel to Paris: Itinerary for Traveling to Paris Solo + 26 Things to Do Alone in Paris​

As I’m approaching one year of living in Paris (and four years’ living in France altogether), I put together an absolutely juggernaut of a guide on solo travel in Paris. (Fun fact: My first-ever solo trip back in 2017 was a weekend alone in Paris.) Feel free to peruse this 8,000-word guide at your convenience to find insights on where to eat, shop, and stroll in Paris (at night and during the day) (for free or on the cheap) all alone in the City of Lights. READ​

Missed Issue No. 005 of A Merry Loner’s Digest? You’re not too late—catch up on evergreen essays you'll love.

From the Archives

• ​Looking Inward: Why Shelby DiNobile Decided to Get Off Social Media & What He Learned: In a conversation with A Merry Loner, Shelby opens up about why he chose to quit social media for a year, the pressure of maintaining an online persona, and how spending more time alone actually helped him focus on more real, authentic relationships. READ​
• ​Books for Existential DreadWhen doom-scrolling is killing your soul, frenemies are praying on your insecurities, family is suffocating you with expectations, or you’re having one of those days where the future looks bleak and empty of promise—turn to a book. It won’t ask you to double-tap or subscribe. It won’t inquire about your romantic life or any developments in producing grandchildren. It won’t even talk back. Instead, it will be there when you need it. And even when you leave it, it will be waiting right where you left off when you’re ready to return. READ​

A Merry Loner’s Community

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And In the Real World…

• A few friends came to visit from elsewhere in France for a long weekend in Paris. It was delightful (even though I was simultaneously trying to figure out how to put out mouse traps to catch my first (and hopefully last) unwelcome visitor). We ate plenty, lazed in parks and gardens, and got our culture on in three different museums.
• I went on a day trip with a few friends and the husband to Provins, where I also ate plenty—but this time, wondered in a mystical rose garden and got to peek in on a random wedding in the local church.
• By chance (and through the good graces of LinkedIn), I discovered that there’s a Phi Beta Kappa chapter in Paris. This month, I attended my first event during which I stared at art in the Palais de Tokyo with strangers and later sipped on wine together and became a little less strange to each other.

To turning on do-not-disturb and living more life in the real world,

Merry