I think there's a subtle difference between "monitoring for notifications" and actual notifications. Your phone might be on do-not-disturb mode, but that doesn't mean your brain isn't distracted wondering whether someone replied to your last message or returned your call from yesterday. Taking it out of your pocket and leaving it in another room or your car or wherever lessens the compulsion to frequently pull it out and check.
I noticed something similar during meditation: I had set up the stopwatch on my phone so that I did not have to wonder how many time had passed. It would just ring when 30 minutes had passed. However, when the phone was just lying next to me, I would compulsively check the time on the phone every few minutes. Only when I moved the phone to the other side of the room did I stop caring about the time passed (at least for the most part).
This reminds me of my experience giving up my wristwatch. I would glance at it frequently, but then didn't know the time because the behavior was strictly reflex. Finally, someone asked me for the time right after I did this and I had to look again because I hadn't internalized it. That was the day I removed my watch forever.
Your comment about being beholden to your phone reminds me a a great quote that I recalled on that day: "Wearing a watch is like being handcuffed to time."
I gave up wrist watches back in the late 90's when carrying a cellphone with automatic carrier time became a new sort of norm. I just wanted to shed accessories and check pockets for one less thing before heading out the door.
Later on, maybe by 2010, I had noticed that as my aversion to blackberry vibrations emerged, and I avoided my work-related cellphone more and more, I got really good at ballparking the time to within a margin of maybe two minutes, give or take.
Basically by now, somehow, I'm able to glance at a known clock with an accurate reading (or with a known offset to the accurate time), catch the time once, and usually remain pretty accurate for the next handful of hours, until I get stuck in a sufficiently distracting situation that demands concentration. Up until that point, I try to guess the time to the minute before looking, then look, and often, I'm right on.
I don't have any special method beyond that though. It's just a gut feeling I've accidentally developed. I think it started when I disabled rings and vibrations for email alerts and I'd (with an amount of dread) try to guestimate how many emails would drop before the next time I checked my phone, and the minutes since my last look.
I think the next level up, beyond this skill is memorizing relevant time zones and major cities in each, but I haven't been pushed into caring about something like that quite yet.
> "Wearing a watch is like being handcuffed to time."
I like the quote because that's how I feel when I look at any digital clock or watch. The millisecond accuracy of any NTP-aware device produces anxiety and is unnecessary.
An analog watch, especially if it's a wind-up mechanical watch, which is by its nature slightly inaccurate, is much more comforting. I feel like an observer of time, and not a slave of it.
Just because you don't do something all the time doesn't mean you're a -phobe. Someone who is a car lover isn't sitting in a stationary Honda Accord all day just because they love cars. Someone who loves food isn't eating junk food 24-7. That's called addiction.
A car lover seeks out beautiful cars, and maybe owns one or two that they take out enjoy when they have time.
A technophile is the same. What this discussion is about is addicts, not technophiles or technophobes.
When you are used to notifications, you look for them even if you don't have your phone with you. It takes a while to detoxify yourself, and lose your "check reflex".
Are you not married, or do not have children or old parents? I would not forgive myself for missing an emergency call because I was hoping to be more productive.
Totally this. The reduced costs to instant communication makes some people feel entitled to your attention at any random moment. It requires a strong and active pushback.
The iOS Do Not Disturb feature allows you to set an exclusion for a chosen group of contacts, so you could allow calls from your spouse or parents while blocking everything else.
I have it scheduled to turn on every night so I'm not disturbed by spam calls at 3AM, with a few family members excluded.
same - except my DND is set for midnight until 4pm. i still check the phone at lunch or when i get to work but i otherwise wont notice it unless it actually rings.
Perhaps there is a second side to it in that you'll be thinking about what the best time is to next check your phone. Granted it's a little far removed, but it's plausible. It stands for other commitments that run all the time too, though.
