The Cure to America’s Brainrot

10 Tips To Get Off Your Phone & Touch Grass

Help – I’m addicted to my phone and I can’t stop scrolling!

We’ve all been there. That crazy urge to comb through your apps and get the next dopamine rush from a funny meme, interesting TikTok trend, or see how good Dua Lipa looked on her last tour stop.

But sadly, we all know it’s eating us alive. The Brain Rot is real. Personally, I’ve found myself shorter with my conversations, bored more easily, and struggling to pay attention for periods longer than a few minutes. Studies show that these types of consequences are not only commonplace, but a direct result of staring at our phones too long.

In fact, 71% of Americans report spending more time on their phones than with their romantic partner, contributing to feelings of neglect or disconnection in relationships (Reviews.org, 2025). For kids, it’s even worse, as 65% of children feel their parents’ phone use distracts from quality family time, leading to feelings of neglect. Teens are 2.5 times more likely to report emotional distance from parents who are heavy phone users (Common Sense Media, 2023).

You don’t have to look very far to find alarming stats on phone addiction ruining our interpersonal relationships. And frankly, we all know we should probably get off our phones more often. But how do we actually do this?

At Noble, this is a problem we built our company to solve first hand, starting with our No-Bull Plan that offers you unlimited data on the T-Mobile 5G Network (for when you need it), but also gives you cash back when you use less data each month… all for just $50 per month!

AND… if you do want to get the most out of that plan, or just start building a healthy phone-life-balance, here are a ton of good tricks to get off your phone and end the Brain Rot:

1. New Rule: No-Phone Commutes

• Most of us end up scrolling our phones while we’re commuting to and from work or various events in our lives. If I get in an Uber it’s almost a reflex now to open my phone to avoid conversation with the driver. 

• Personally, the best thing I’ve found is to just make a new rule of keeping my phone away while on the subway or riding somewhere. If you need music, pre-download it on WiFi, and don’t take your phone out of your pocket.

2. Airplane Mode is Your New BFF

• Going for a walk and want to enjoy your surroundings? Flip on Airplane mode and feel yourself free up from the constant notifications on your phone. You’ll still get your important texts and emails when you turn it back on, and you’ll be pleasantly surprised a, how much you didn’t miss, and b, how relaxing it’ll be. I’ve done this while commuting too – it’s a healthy reminder, “Oh yeah, that text/ping/email is actually not life-or-death, and I can respond on my own time.”

3. Focus Mode

• A simple “do-not-disturb” setting on iPhones does wonders for Brain Rot. More importantly, you can customize certain focus settings on your phone:
  • For iPhones: Go to Settings > Focus
  • For Androids: Go to Settings > Digital Wellbeing & Parental Controls > Focus Mode

• In each feature, you can block apps, remove them from your home screen, and adjust notifications you don’t want to receive when this mode is activated
• Make different settings for work, commutes, home, so you can avoid unnecessary emails, pings, or other notifications that prevent you from being present.
• For me, once I’m done with work, I have a “Personal Time” focus setting that only lets my good friends and family text me, and prevents work emails, apps, social media, and other work-related distractions pop-up and pull me back into my phone.

4. Leave Your Phone At Home

• Try this – go for a walk, or go get a meal with friends, and leave your phone at home. It’s jarring at first, but you’ll be AMAZED at how free you feel. It’s a forcing function to be more present, and removes the phone temptation with one simple step.

5. Set Time Limits

• Use built-in phone features like Screen Time (iOS) or Digital Wellbeing (Android) to set daily app limits. For me, I started with 1 hour limits on X and Instagram (my doomscrolls of choice), and really try to stick to them. That little alert that pops up “You’ve got 15-minutes left before you reach your limit!” is a healthy “oh crap I gotta stop doing this reminder” and tends to work most days.

6. Create Phone-Free Zones

• Pick an area in your home to designate as “Phone-Free.” I started with my bed, for example. I bought an alarm clock for next to my bed to make sure I could still wake up at the right time, and plugged my phone in outside of my room. And you know what I started doing next when I didn’t want to sleep? I actually read a book! I felt great. Another option is the bathroom — but I live for podcasts and / or shower tunes, so I started with the bed.

7. Use Grayscale Mode

• Switch your phone to grayscale to make it less visually stimulating, reducing the dopamine pull of colorful apps and games. I tried this for a day and I was SHOCKED at how much less I wanted to look at my phone. You’ll be surprised how much this diminishes your phone’s addictive pull. Something about the bright colors keeps me hooked…
• To do this:
  • For iPhone:
    • Settings > Accessibility > Vision > Display & Text Size
    • Scroll and tap Color Filters > Toggle On
    • Select Grayscale > Adjust Intensity if you’d like
    • You can create a shortcut to turn this on pretty easily:
    • Settings > Accessibility
    • Scroll to General > tap Accessibility Shortcut (at the bottom) > Color Filters
    • Now you can Triple-Click the Side Button to toggle grayscale on/off
  • For Android:
    • Settings > Accessibility > Vision enhancements
    • Tap Color Correction under Display > Toggle on
    • Select Grayscale from the options
      • On Samsung – you may have to click Apply
    • You can create an easy shortcut to toggle Grayscale on/off:
      • Swipe down from the top of the screen to open Quick Settings.
      • Tap the pencil/edit icon to customize tiles.
      • Drag the Color correction or Accessibility tile to the active list
      • Tap the tile to toggle grayscale.
        

8. Put Your Phone Across The Room

• Place your phone in another room or a drawer during work, meals, or sleep to break the habit of mindless scrolling. I started doing this at work — I’d take a meeting in another room and leave my phone at my desk, and it helps me be more present in meetings.
• I’d call this the first step to setting up “Phone-Free Zones” described in #6… if you’re not sure you can fully dedicate an entire space, just start leaving your phone in a different area of whatever space you’re in.
  

9. Journal

• Someone told me to journal and I rolled my eyes. Then I actually tried it and it had two major benefits — One, I actually got into a bit of a creative flow. It took a few times but I started to get lost in it. It unlocked a different part of your brain. Two, you can’t be on your phone while you’re writing! Journaling, even a few minutes per day, is an easy way to avoid the screen, even for a bit, and will help you be more present and calm your brain.

10. Use “Dumb Tech” Tools

• There are amazing tools like Brick and Bloom to help you avoid using certain apps and social media while you’re at home or work. I love having the physical card from Bloom to lock and unlock my phone alerts, based on settings I set up previously. Maybe we’ll get one of those for Noble…
• If you want to go even further, “dumb phones” like Light Phone are really cool tech options to limit the number of apps and notifications you are trying to avoid.

I’m please to say the majority of Noble members tell us they use way less screen time and are avoiding Brain Rot way more often, so if you haven’t started getting paid to get off your phone, get Noble ASAP. Regardless, these healthier habits will improve your phone-life-balance and get you touching grass in no time.

Stay tuned for more tips to use less data so you can get paid, not played!

– Team Noble