At some point in my life, I racked up to 8 hours of phone screen time. A whole working day looking at a smartphone screen! Was I writing a breakthrough science paper? No. Arranging business affairs? No. I was scrolling and scrolling through endless feeds of recommended content. Numbing my brain to avoid even the slightest hint of boredom.

I know, some people actually use their phones to do useful or necessary things. Yet, I can’t imagine a modern smartphone being a productivity-tailored device. It is a tool for consumption, not creation. With ubiquitous algorithmic feeds, it is an ultimate candy shop for our silly little brains, so easily hooked on dopamine. It’s like having a dopamine button in your pocket at all times.

By its nature, algorithmic entertainment is low-value. It is designed with the sole purpose of keeping one’s attention – which is a commodity, don’t forget that – for as long as possible. What do you feel after an hourlong TikTok session? Educated? Spiritually enriched? At least rested? I bet that you don’t feel any of that. Rather, you may even feel guilty that you spent your precious time so carelessly.

The biggest problem with algorithmic entertainment is that it takes all the intention from the process. Watching an actual movie at home is now an activity that requires enormous intention and focus. Choose the movie. Read reviews, maybe. Find the time. Put your phone down and try to actually sit through the whole thing without checking it every five seconds. Ugh, so much work! I am trying to relax or do another mindfulness exercise?! (Mindful movie watching, mindful walking, mindful eating, mindful whatever-else-they-come-up-with).

I challenge you to watch a 1.5–2 hour movie without checking your phone a single time. Not even to see “is it that actor who played in…?”. And I’m not even talking about reading a book for 2 hours straight. Your little brain is just not ready for that.

With such a low value, the price of algorithmic entertainment is enormous. This is the definition of wasting time. Don’t get me wrong, though. I’m neither a hyper-productivity nor a hustle lifestyle advocate. All work and no play never works. But there’s good play. It fulfills you, builds connections, excites, educates. Then there’s bad play. It leaves you with guilt, feeling like you’ve spent time and got nothing in return. It’s even worse when low-value entertainment takes so much mental space that there’s no left for other things.

The mind is almost never actually empty. Have you ever tried to think about nothing? This is a skill people spend years mastering. Whenever there’s an empty space in your mind, it immediately tries to fill it with something. New thoughts, ideas, memories, inspiration, you name it. And when you cut down on mind-polluting activities and give your mind some space, you will see new ideas strike seemingly out of nowhere. In fact, they’ve always been in your brain. You just didn’t give them enough space to thrive.

Silence is the ultimate mindfulness, focus, and discipline exercise. Being alone with your thoughts is hard. It can be scary, too. One of the reasons we’re so attracted to distractions is that they relieve us from the burden of thinking about difficult things. No need to process old trauma, think about the past or the future if you’re one tap away from the endless stream of dopamine. If you manage to embrace this stillness, a reward will be waiting for you. The brain won’t let you stay bored—it will change the kinds of things you do to deal with boredom.

I’m not a fan of dopamine fasting. This concept is based on many misconceptions and has little to no scientific research to back it up. Yet, it has some rationale behind it. Substitute low-value activities and learn to be entertained by higher-value ones.

Briefly reciting a part of Atomic Habits by James Clear: make bad habits hard to do and good habits easy to do. Delete all social media apps from your phone. Log out every time you finish scrolling. Throw your phone into the lake. Plug off the WiFi router every time you don’t need to use the internet. I don’t care. Make low-value activities as hard as possible and free up your mental capacity for more valuable things.

I have a very simple exercise for you to start with. Check your screen time for this week and ask yourself if it was worth it. How did you spend this time? How could you have spent this time? What if you had spent at least a fraction of this time doing nothing?

Wrapping up, I want to share an article by Matt Richtel, published in the New York Times way back in 2011. Looking at things like this in hindsight gives a lot of food for thought.

So ask yourself, when was the last time you just sat in silence?