I turned my smartphone into an e-reader. Here’s what happpened.

Summers as a college student are weird. Typically I have an internship, job or something to occupy my time. Even still, compared to the constant hustle and bustle of classes and homework, there is a lot of empty space. The first week after exams feels like a blessing, but by the time June rolls around, the lack of activity starts to eat at me. While filling that time void with productivity, hobbies or even just hanging out with friends would have been ideal, rotting on my phone became a more common practice. 

Now that school is back in session, I had a radical idea: Instead of filling my small slivers of free time with social media-fueled brain rot, what if I committed to something I actually enjoyed? Something like … reading? For three days, I challenged myself to turn my phone from an instant gratification machine into an e-reader and audiobook player. 

Here’s how it went.  

The rules: To imitate a pre-smartphone life as much as possible, I decided I could use my phone for normal phone things — calls, texts and other communication — and nonmedia-related internet searches. Social media, YouTube, music and even my beloved solitaire app were deleted from my device. My general rule of thumb was that anything fun or traditionally deemed entertaining became a book, whether in audio or text format. 

Day 1 – Thursday 

I got off to an easy start on this challenge I set for myself — funny how that works, right? I quit using TikTok, Instagram and X last year, so the social media detox portion wasn’t as extreme as it might have been for others. What I haven’t been able to kick, however, is my YouTube addiction (Seriously, when you start having the drive to your workplace narrated by a four-hour video ranking every trap in the Saw franchise, you know you have a problem). As a result, my first big hurdle came the second I woke up. Normally, the only thing that could motivate me out of bed is YouTube; this incentive was no more. Too tired to process an audiobook, I brushed my teeth and ate my toast in silence — probably a good thing, considering I was almost late for class that morning.    

When I got home for lunch I faced my next test. I’m a chronic Youtube-with-food enjoyer, which made the lack of stimulation with my meal taxing. That’s embarrassing to admit. To supplement, I opened a book on my phone: Toni Morrison’s “Jazz,” a remarkable literary achievement. While not the best known of her catalog, the stylistic risks Morrison takes in this novel pay off beautifully. Harold Bloom called her style a successful subversion of Faulkner’s, an estimation I find simultaneously accurate and woefully ungenerous in its simplicity. She doesn’t just write incredible prose — she understands how her structure informs the content of her narrative and, even further, the radical nature of how she tells her stories. There is no such thing as perfect art, but the closest I’ve seen is Morrison’s writing.  

Morrison is one of my favorite authors, and yet, a whole summer later, I hadn’t managed to get through her bibliography. Why? It wasn’t like I didn’t have the time. The truth was that I didn’t have the focus; even though reading is something I love above almost everything else, the capacity to pay attention to complex work is hard to muster when easy, instantly satisfying social media is in my hand. It’s a phenomenon I’m not alone in experiencing: Technology is making it harder to focus, sometimes intentionally. After all, the more hours you spend on your phone, the more money corporations can make off you.     

Despite all of this, to my surprise, the rest of the day passed without much friction. With classes and homework, I wouldn’t have had much time before bed to scroll anyway. What I did make time for, however, was a quick jog. It wasn’t until I was out the door that I realized this would be my first-ever run without a soundtrack accompanying me. Then came another shock — the run was great. Normally I always have to have something in my ears to assuage the boredom from a jog, but without anything else to focus on? I felt like time actually moved faster. Things were looking good.  

Day 2 – Friday 

The sting of no entertainment on my phone was a little lighter this morning, having gone through the routine yesterday. Still, I was getting sick of my silent walks around campus at this point, and I decided to begin an audiobook. I chose Anne Brontё’s “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.” The other most famous Brontё works — Emily’s “Wuthering Heights” and Charlotte’s “Jane Eyre” — are among my favorite books of all time and, although it’s less well-known, “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall” comes up as an equal work in Brontё enthusiast communities. After a few hours of listening, I can concur: The book has the same almost-revolutionary tone, exhilarating prose and lucid insights into the human psyche as other Brontё works. These qualities seem unbelievable in books written more than 150 years ago. Even though they’re quite old, I highly recommend them if you’re looking for a good classic to dig into. 

I was doing pretty well. But later that night came a real challenge. I was going to a party … where I knew only the person who invited me. This is the prime kind of situation where distractions are welcome. Awkward conversation? Check phone. No one to talk to? Check phone. With nothing to do but read, I felt like I was walking into an event with the social skills of Ben Shapiro. I managed to push through with some mediocre small talk and ended the night proud of my (relative) outgoingness. 

Day 3 – Saturday 

I expected this to be the worst day of my self-imposed challenge. With no classes and an entire weekend of dog-sitting ahead of me, the temptation to redownload an app was at its peak. But, yet again, I surprised myself. Suddenly, I found myself not craving my phone. I was happy to read, sit around talking and do some homework to pass the time. Not only did I get to enjoy the books I was reading, but I also just felt better — less scattered, less anxious and more grounded. I churned through my books and got things done, then relaxed with friends in the evening. It was, in a way, a perfect day. All because of my dummy phone. 

By the end of the day, I had torn through “Jazz” and “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall,” getting about a quarter of the way through both. Over the summer, for comparison, I read six books, total. I had more than tripled my reading efficiency, even though I had significantly less free time. Those are the kinds of fantasy results you see on a scam weight loss ad: too good to be true. Like all those claims, there was a catch; Leaving my house, I brought a physical book with me (Kurt Vonnegut’s “The Sirens of Titan,” for the curious) but didn’t read a single page during the day. My phone was always in my hand, and I was primed to use it when I was bored or stressed; why would I turn to anything else? My paperback never stood a chance. Although my reading numbers had increased dramatically, as I fell asleep to a phone screen instead of a physical book copy, I realized that my addiction, in a way, remained as powerful as ever.

Conclusions

Since my experiment, I’ve definitely gone back and done some of the things I’d given up for the past few days. Living without music was the most immediate thing to rectify, though catching up on some YouTube videos came quickly after. Important to note, however, is that when I’ve found a spare moment between classes, waiting in line or even relaxing at home, I’ve been turning to books instead of my screens. 

While the practical results aren’t that groundbreaking, the fact that I achieved them so quickly was startling. Was this all I needed to achieve my reading goals? Was my broken brain so easily fixable? I started to spiral. My bookshelf is almost collapsing in on itself with all the books I haven’t read. Is this little change all it’ll take to finally tackle them? Was my phone really the root of why I hadn’t gotten to them? If so, how can I live in a world with smartphones as essential items, knowing it’s poisoning my ability to do the thing I love most in the world? 

I don’t know the answer to any of those questions. There’s a lot more out there fracturing our attention spans than just our smartphones. Maybe this change will be temporary. While the jury is still out, I recommend anyone reading this to try it out for themselves. And if you end up spiraling like me? Well, sorry about that. 

Either way — happy reading!

Daily Arts Writer Grace Sielinski can be reached at gsielins@umich.edu.

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