Not everything needs to be known: How one day with no phone changed my life

I can't count the number of times I stood outside my neighborhood church and lied to myself about my smartphone usage.

Over the past decade, my daughters have often stopped to play on the church's thick grass lawn. That's when I engage in the ritual of pulling the device from my pocket to pass the time, under the guise of efficiency. The lie arrives swiftly: You need to catch up on the online grocery order. You need to respond to that unanswered text message. Don't you need to know the weekend weather forecast? 

If I did see what I was doing, justifications would follow. Hey, your parents didn't watch you every second of the day. You're not doomscrolling, you're being productive!  It was only when I cut my phone out of my life for 24 hours that I saw those justificati...