It’s becoming accepted truth that iPhones are distraction machines. We’re constantly bombarded by notifications, with our favourite apps incentivised to model themselves after flypaper to maximise attention.

One diagnosis for this which makes sense to me is that the modern iPhone is a device without a clear purpose: a true Everything Box. The problem is that it’s incredibly hard to be intentional with something like that.

Stop me if this sounds familiar: you pick up your phone to make a quick note of something that caught your attention, but it’s all too easy to also “just quickly check” your email, or your insta, or reply to that message. Before you know it, half an hour has gone by as you stagger bleary-eyed back to the present moment. You were ambushed by the Everything Box, and you probably didn’t even manage to make that damn note in the first place.

So what’s the answer? I’ve seen a strong argument that it’s time to ditch the very idea of the Everything Box, that we’ve comfortably demonstrated that it’s a dead end, and that it’s time to go back to single purpose devices that do one thing exceptionally.

To take the notemaking example above, what a different experience I have when, instead of my phone, I pull a nice notebook and pen out of my pocket to make that note! Not only are there no distractions, but the pen has a chance to bring me joy, as does the notebook. Further, by carrying the notebook, the object itself is a reminder of a habit I want to cultivate: make more notes!

So, the theory goes, look at all the things the iPhone removed, and reintroduce them to your life in the name of intentionality: stop taking photos on the phone, take a nice camera with you! Stop listening to music on your phone, dig up an old iPod on ebay and choose the music you want to bring with you. Want something to read? Forget doomscrolling Facebook, make sure you have a magazine to hand. Stop hate-watching the news, buy a newspaper and read it cover to cover. Ditch x: if you want to connect with people, use your shiny new dumbphone and, you know, call them.

Which I guess is fine advice. Each of those things will do the same double duty as the notebook, providing an intentional, single purpose outlet for your need while also reminding you to do that thing in the first place.

But, frankly, I’m a little suspicious. Let’s replay that list again in slow motion, and look at how many new things I need to buy:

• Notebooks and pens
• Camera
• iPod
• Magazines
• Newspapers
• Dumbphone

Now, I don’t think there’s some sort of global conspiracy to get us to re-buy all the things we ditched in favour of the iPhone, but I do think that this is an extreme position. Not to mention an expensive one if you already own an iPhone.

So what is the answer?

Context is king

David Sparks has long been banging the drum about what he calls “contextual computing”, and I think this is a big part of the solution. The iPhone is an excellent tool for many of the things we want do in the course of our lives, but as stated way back at the start, its very nature as an Everything Box makes it a dangerous tool for our primate attentions.

We deal with dangerous tools all the time, though. A lawnmower is a dangerous tool. A stove is a dangerous tool. The hot water tap can be a dangerous tool. We don’t then respond to these dangers by deciding the tool can no longer be used, or that we have to use some other tool. I’m not seeing anyone advocating for mowing lawns with scissors as they’re less likely to fling rocks out from under them into unsuspecting neighbours’ windows.

No, instead we look at the dangerous aspects and find ways (either physical or systemic) to mitigate that danger.

For an iPhone, the danger is lack of clear intention. The mitigation is to introduce an intentional interface to the iPhone.

Let’s go back to the note-making story from earlier. Now, instead of having to open our phone, find the notes app, open it up, type out the note, and then put the phone back in our pocket without going back to any of the shiny icons we saw on our way in, we instead:

• Grabbed our phone
• Tapped “make a note” from the lock screen
• Typed the note into a box
• Put away the phone

Isn’t that better? Potentially better than the notebook (since it presumably brings with it all the benefits of digital notemaking, like syncing, search, perfect legibility and so on) with none of the drawbacks.

If you construct a list of such actions, or intentions, then those also serve as a reminder to do those things too.

Defending my attention

So how does this work in practice? Well, one of the things I’ve done is to create a shortcut that simply pops up a text field and asks what’s on my mind. I type whatever I need into that box, and hit “done”.

Then, a menu pops up asking what I want to do with it. I can turn it into a list of tasks and add it to my task manager. Or maybe it’s a list of things to add to the shared shopping list for whoever in the family is next at the shops to pick up?

Or perhaps it’s a note to add to my journal, or maybe it’s a message to send to a family member. Those are all options too. I pick one… and that’s it. The text is added to wherever it needs to go, and the shortcut ends.

This is then connected to a button on my phone’s lock screen, so I don’t even have to unlock my phone to do this. No distractions, just whatever was on my mind handled. I even added an option to the bottom of the list to open the shortcut itself for editing while copying the input text to the clipboard, so that if I want to do something new with the text, I have an easy way to add that to the list rather than risk going into my phone.

Now, is this a perfect solution? Of course not. First, I don’t believe in perfect solutions, but second, I think all of these choices are tradeoffs. There’s undeniably something nice about a good notebook, or a solid, dedicated camera with a sharp prime lens on it. Am I saying you shouldn’t go and get these things? No, and I’ll admit to being damn tempted myself.

I’m just suggesting that we shouldn’t be so quick to write off the iPhone as a failed experiment. Like most tools, ultimately we are in charge of how we use them. That an iPhone comes out of the box in a way that encourages mindless usage does not mean that there is nothing to be done to transform it into a tool that serves our needs, rather than the other way round.

In fact, I’d argue that modern iPhone bend over backwards to help us ensure that they are “safe to use”, and that it’s our habits that lead to them becoming distraction machines. This is not about blame, but an encouragement to see that, if it’s our doing, it’s also something we can undo, while still retaining the truly magical powers that iPhone can confer on us mere mortals.

I’ll be writing more about this, as I think that defending our attention is one of the most important actions we can take right now. You can’t fight injustice, push back against fascism, save the climate, or anything else meaningful if you can’t direct your attention towards those things in the first place. But for right now, if writing your own shortcuts seems a bit daunting, I’ve found these to be simple but effective next steps:

• Consider switching notifications to a “blocked by default” setting. What would it look like if you only enabled notifications for a short period every day?
  • If there’s one app you absolutely need notifications from all the time, what is it and why? If it’s messages so that you can hear from a sick relative, could you configure everyone else to be blocked by default?
• Which one app on your phone is the one that pulls you in most often? Do you really need it on your phone, or would it work just as well to only access it from your laptop? What would it feel like if you logged out each time you finished using it?

Even just applying these two questions to my own phone has made a huge difference to my experience of using it, turning it into something I go to when I need something, not when it tells me it needs something.

In short, it doesn’t take much to be reminded that I can be in control of where I spend my attention, and only a little more to start to reassert that control.