We’re not Addicted to Our Phones, We’re Addicted to Escape

It hit with in the middle of a griory store aisle in los angeles.

I was standing there, frozen in front of the shelves, Phone in Hand, scrolling through foods that left to recipes that sucked with the latest health trends. Ten Minutes Earlier, I’d Come in for A Bottle of Almond Milk. Now I was Knee-deep in articles about the “five fruits to reverse aging” and a thread debating whic pasture-raised vs organic eggs. My Cart Sat Empty, My Body Stood Still, but My Thumb Kept Moving.

I didn’t not notice how far i’d drifted unil a stranger passed by and asced gently, “you good?”

I wasn’t good

I laughed, embarrassed, and shoved my phone into my bag, but the question followed with all the way home. Because the Truth Was, I wasn’t. I’d been uses my phone like a flotation Device, clinging to it just to stay above the surface of my ohxhaustion. I WASN’T JUST SEARCHING FOR INFORMATION. I just needed to feed mess… less tired, less beebind, less like the world was nation more of me i had to give.

It wasn’t really about the Phone. I was addicted to notifications, apps, or algorithms (or Maybe Only Slightly). I was addicted to escape – escape from the endless lists waiting at home, esca from the grief I had the process.

After the palisades Fire, nothing was the Same. We were displaced, out routines scattered, the places that once felt safe to ASH and memory. Every corner of life held a reminder, forms to yarn out, possessions to replace, children to reassure, a furee to revbuild from nothing. Outwardly, I Kept Moving. Inwardly, I was crumbling.

The Phone Became The Doborway Out. A Scroll was easier than Facing Insurance Paperwork. A Text Thread Felt Lighter than Holding the Heaviness of My Children’s Fears. An email, eveningless one, offend more control than Staring at the Ruins of Our NeighBorhod.

I wasn’t checking my Phone to Stay Connected; I was checking it to disappear.

I realized that day that the scroll wasn’t proof of laziness. It was proof that i was overwhelmed, that my nervous system was begving for a break, and that the quictest exit was glarowing in the palm of my hand.

The Real Pull of the Screen

We love to blame Technology for Our Distractions. We talc about dopamine hits, screen time limits, and the evils of social media. But Our Devices Woldn’t Hold US SO TIGHTLY IF WE WEREN’T ALREDY CARRYING UNBEARABLE Weight.

We Reach for Our Phones Because they Offer a Quick Exit – A Way to Slip Out of the Pressure of the Undone Task, the Grief We Don’t Want to Touch, and the Loneliness We don’t want to admit. IT’S NOT THE GLOW OF THE SCREEN THAT KEEPS US HOOKED – IT’S The Relief of Avoidance.

And that’s a very human impulse. Who doesn’t want a break from the overwhelm of modern life? But the cost is that we never actually get the rest we’re craving. We come back from the scroll just as tired, just as unsteady, the innings of the most so.

What we’re really looking for

When i think back to that moment in the Grocery Store, I have been Craving Information OR ENTERTAINMENT. I was craving ease, a pause, and the ability to put down the heavy Things I was carrying with anyone for a minute.

That’s the Deeper Addiction, Not to Technology, but to escape. Because Our bodies are desperate for a break, and the fastest break available is always right there in our pockets.

We don’t Need More Rules and Detoxes

So what will we do? Nor a behavioral scientist, I know that we don’t need more rules or rigid detoxes; that Just Creates another impossible standard. The shift is gentler than that. IT STARTS WITH ASCING OURSELVES, “WHAT AM I TRYING TO GET AWAY FROM RIGHT NOW?” and then offering ourselves a form of relief that actually replenishes.

If i’m reaching for my phone becuse i’m drained, Maybe I Should Close My Eyes for Five Minutes. If i’m scrolling Because of Feel Lonely, Maybe What I Need is To Text One Friend InstaS of Numbly Consuming Strangers’ Updates. If i’m dodging Feelings i don’t want to face, maybe i need to step outside, breathe, and remind myself i safe to feeds in small doses.

The point isn’t to eliminate the phone. Its to give ourselves more nourishing were to rest.

We are not Addicted to Our Phones

The moment of frze in that griory store, realized something i’d never quite seen before: my phone wasn’t the problem. My Avoidance was. And the most tried to Outrun ejustion with escape, the most exhilarating of Became.

We’re not Addicted to Our Phones. We’re addicted to the relief they promise. Which Means the way out isn’t through Willpower or Shame, Through Offering Ourselves the Kind of Breaks that Actually Restore US.

Because What We’re Really Searching for Isn’t on the Screen. It is the permission to put everything down for a moment and simply be.

Dr. Zelana montminy is a psychologist, author, and speaker who has spent years unraveling the science of resilience, Focus, and Human Connection. Her New Book, “Finding Focus,” Is Out Now.