Good morning,

The very first edition of Log Off! It feels surreal to be pressing publish.

I’ve been wanting to do something like this for a while. It’s impossible to ignore just how broken our relationship is with social media and the internet. If this newsletter can help improve that, even a little bit, then it will make it all worth it.

As we build this into the future, we want to hear from readers like you. Hit us up with any story ideas, suggestions, or really anything! We read every single email.

In this issue:

• 🔢 A shocking number

• 🎯 Scrolling replaces scrolling, here’s how to fix it

• 📊 A screen time calculator

— Geoff Sharpe, co-founder

The number that should scare you

At its most basic input, life is time. It’s how many hours in a day, week and month. At some point, that time runs out (no matter how long some want to extend life).

What we do with that time matter. Our attention, what we focus on, devote our time to, it’s the only thing that matters.

Yet very few people stop and consciously think about how that breaks down on a weekly or yearly basis.

The average adult sleeps 7.5 hours a day. Over one week, that’s 52.5 hours, or almost two days. Over a year, that’s 114 days. Yet we need sleep. It’s also not a bad thing to get a little more than average. It’s hardly a waste.

Another constant? Work. You need to make a living. In fact, you may even enjoy your job. Much to my chagrin, I’m one of those people. At 40 hours a week, that’s 86 days a year. Mostly worthwhile in my opinion, though you may disagree. 

Put aside sleep and work, and you’re left with about 165 days per year of your own time. Rest, relax, hang with friends, or in my case, obsess over cooking or go for hikes. Anything and everything is possible. 

But, you don’t actually have 165 days. 

The average American spends 4.5 hours on their mobile device. Swiping, watching, consuming. Forgetting what you watched, moving onto the next. Liking, commenting, raging.

Can you say that 4.5 hours is actually valuable? Is it a good use of your limited time? If you’re reading this, chances are the answer is no. 

At 4.5 hours per day, you’re spending just over 68 days a year on your phone. That leaves you not with 165 days in a year for all non-work and sleep activities, but around 97 days.

It gets worse the farther you zoom out. Let’s assume you start your phone habit at the age of 16, and that you live to an average age of 76 years old. Simple math shows you will spend approximately — take a deep breath  — 11.25 years of your life on your mobile device.

When you map it out like this — 4.5 hours per day, 31.5 hours a week, 68 days a year, 11.25 years in your life — the cost of your phone becomes clear.

I did these calculations back in January. You might say I’m still suffering from this clarity. It’s one of the biggest reasons I started Log Off.

But with clarity and understanding comes change. Even a small step now can save you some of those 68 days a year of screen time.

That’s a wrap on today’s story. We’ll be sharing more strategies and ways to log off in the coming weeks, but this first story helps set the stage for the scale of the problem.

TIPS & TRICKS

Break the cycle of endless scrolling

One of the top discussions on Digital Minimalism, a Reddit community on reducing digital devices, discussed how it’s not just enough to remove an app from your phone. You end up replacing it with something else.

I’ve seen this personally happen. I managed to remove TikTok months ago. I did shift more time to other apps, but I’ve also been reading a whole lot more.

Here are some tips I’d recommend to shift away from scrolling on other apps:

1. Keep your phone away from you. You’ll hear this a lot, but it matters. It’s too easy to reach for it.

2. Set reminders. I use my Google Home to set 15-20 minute reminders when I sit down on my phone. It helps shake me out of scrolling

3. Shift to better consumption habits. I’ve found a few podcasts I really enjoy, and have switched my consumption habits from scrolling to thinking. A long walk with your favourite podcast makes it very hard to scroll endlessly.

ONE BIG STORY

One big problem with AI

The story: A new report is looking at what may be a huge problem with AI in the future, and how we may already be at the zenith of the trend.

Breaking it down: A study published in Nature showed that when AI tools rely on data and content from AI to build their models, the results that get generated are worse and worse over time.

• AI is trained on existing data. As that data disappears and is replaced by more AI content, there is no new human generated content to train the algorithms.

The result? After consuming more and more AI content, it “loses touch with original threads of reality and tends to create its own best answer based on its own best recycled data points.”

• There’s probably some sort of metaphor here about humans also consuming AI crap content…

Why this matters: It’s good news for many of us who aren’t ready to embrace AI. But it likely won’t stop people from using it. My theory and hope? We see a flight to higher quality content, especially things in the real world that aren’t easily replicable

RESOURCE & RECOMMENDATIONS

• It’s okay to do nothing. And more people are doing it. Here’s why. [BBC]

• Andrew Huberman is a very popular podcaster. I wouldn’t say all his content is useful, but this episode on productivity is very valuable.

• This is interesting… A reviewer of the new Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 discussed how the phone cut down on his screen time. [Tom’s Guide]

• This is kind of cool, it’s a daily journaling app. The catch? You do it through a phone call, not by typing on your phone.

COMMUNITY CORNER

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