What It’s Like Going 5 Days Without A Phone

Properly managing real life and your phone is hard work. There are things you can do to bring these forces back into balance, like using an app to check how many times you open your phone each day, which can be helpful. But have you ever wondered what would happen if you gave up your phone entirely?

We went phone-free, cold-turkey, for five days to see what it's like. You can check out our experience in the video above.

Lucie, our brave guinea pig, learned a lot over the course of her five-day experiment — including that she doesn't know her borough quite as well as she thought. And does anyone even sell alarm clocks anymore? The biggest lessons were in the little moments when she'd normally just mindlessly swipe around on her smartphone screen.

Luckily, you don't (necessarily) have to ditch your phone to learn Lucie's lessons. Her best piece of advice: "Ask yourself what you're reaching for when you go for your phone, and if the answer is nothing, don't pick it up." If you want to further trim your smartphone obsession, you can follow these five tips.

We'll keep her tip in mind next time we're itching to pull out our phones "just because."