Everyday there’s a moment when I instinctively reach for my phone without a clear reason. Not because I'm waiting for an email, or I'm curious about a text that just came through, but because the phone is simply there.

And when it’s not there? I feel it. An itch in the back of my mind, a pull to find it, touch it, unlock it.

We all know that smartphones, in their short reign, have fundamentally reshaped our relationship with attention.

But what’s less obvious is how even their mere presence is reshaping our spaces, behaviors, and, most critically, our ability to focus.

Imagine trying to work while someone whispers your name every ten seconds. That’s effectively what it’s like to have a phone in the same room, even if it’s silent.

Research by Adrian Ward at the University of Texas at Austin explored this phenomenon in depth, finding that just having a phone visible, even face down and powered off, reduces our cognitive ability to perform complex tasks.

The mind, it seems, can’t fully ignore the phone’s presence, instead allocating a fraction of its processing power to monitor the device, in case something—anything—might happen.

This phenomenon, known as “brain drain,” erodes our ability to think deeply and engage fully. It’s why we feel more fragmented at work, why conversations at home sometimes feel half-hearted, and why even leisure can feel oddly unsatisfying.

Compounding this is the phenomenon of phantom vibrations, the sensation that your phone is buzzing or ringing when it isn’t. A significant portion of smartphone users experience this regularly, driven by a hyper-awareness of notifications and an over-reliance on their devices.

Ironically, when we do manage to set our phones aside, many of us experience discomfort or anxiety. Nomophobia, or the fear of being without one’s phone, is increasingly common. Studies reveal that nomophobia contributes to heightened anxiety, irritability, and even goes as far as disrupting self-esteem and academic performance.

This is the insidious part of the equation: we’ve created a world where phones damage our ability to focus when they’re near us, but we’ve also become so dependent on them that their absence can feel intolerable.

The antidote to this problem isn’t willpower. It’s environment. If phones act as a gravitational force pulling our attention away, we need spaces where their pull simply doesn’t exist.

Over the next decade, I believe we’ll see a renaissance of phone-free third places. As the cognitive and emotional costs of constant connectivity become more apparent, people will gravitate toward environments that allow them to focus, connect, and simply be.

In New York, I’ve already noticed this shift with the rise of inherently phone-free wellness experiences like Othership and Bathhouse.

Reviews of these spaces consistently use words like “calm,” “present,” and “clarity”—not just emotions, but states of being many of us have forgotten are even possible.

This is what Othership gets right: it doesn’t just ask you to leave your phone behind; it replaces it with something better. An experience so engaging that you don’t miss your phone.

As more people recognize the cognitive toll of phones (and the clarity that comes during periods without them), we’re likely to see a surge of phone-free cafés, coworking spaces, and even social clubs.

Offline Club has built a following of over 450,000 people by hosting pop-up digital detox cafés across Europe. Off The Radar organizes phone-free music events in the Netherlands. A restaurant in Italy offers free bottles of wine to diners who agree to leave their phones untouched throughout their meal.

These initiatives are thriving for a simple reason: people are craving moments of presence in a world designed to demand their constant attention.

But we can’t stop at third places. We need to take this philosophy into the places that shape the bulk of our lives: our first and second places, home and work.

So I leave you with a challenge…

Carve out one phone-free space and one phone-free time in your day. Choose a space (the dining table, your bedroom, or even just a corner of your home) and declare it off-limits to your phone.

Then, pick a stretch of time. Maybe it’s the first 30 minutes after you wake up, or an hour during your lunch break, or the time you spend walking through your neighborhood. Block it off in your calendar.

If you’re headed outside, leave your phone at home. If you’re staying indoors, throw it as far as possible in another room or find a way to lock it up for an extended period of time.

When you commit to this practice, observe the ripple effects. Notice how conversations deepen when phones are absent from the dining table. See how your focus shifts during a walk unburdened by the constant pull of notifications. Pay attention to the quality of your thoughts when your morning begins without a screen.

And please, please, please, take some time to unplug this holiday season. These small, intentional moments of disconnection may just become the most meaningful gifts you give and receive.

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p.s. -- this is an excerpt from my weekly column about how to build healthier, more intentional tech habits. Would love to hear your feedback on other posts.

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