Never Post The Year I Learned to Pay Attention
Nov 21, 2025
Meghal Janardan shares her journey to reclaim her attention span, revealing her struggles with excessive phone use. Emily Mazo and Mohamed Ali, both advocates of democratic control over technology, discuss the New Luddism movement and its focus on worker agency in tech. They emphasize the importance of unions advocating for AI protections and critique how everyday technology turns users into unpaid workers. The trio explores creating pro-social tech and the various forms of resistance against harmful industry practices.
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Shock Of Realizing Excessive Phone Use
- Meghal discovered she spent 19 hours a week on TikTok and felt numb and nauseous when she realized it.
- That shock launched an 11-month experiment to rebuild her attention span using concrete steps.
Observe, Offload, Reconfigure Notifications
- Observe your phone habits before changing anything to understand triggers and attachment to the device.
- Offload tasks to a laptop and reconfigure notifications so you decide when to check messages, not the phone.
Replace Scrolling With Reading
- Replace impulse scrolling with intentional substitutes like books, ebooks, or audiobooks to occupy hands and attention.
- Use Libby and library trips to create a personal algorithm of reading choices that beats autoplay content.
