How often have you questioned the amount of time that you spend glued to your phone?  Is it something that you would like to alter?  If you are even thinking about the role of your phone in your life, this title is well worth a look.


Beautifully illustrated and readable, this book offers alternative ways to use one's time.  The author knows whereof he speaks as he ruefully contemplates the time that he spent on his phone, rather than with his son, with both having entered the world around the same time.  In order to slow down his son's acquisition of a phone,the author takes himself away from all of the "smart" aspects of the phone and returns to flip style where all you can do is talk.  What did he learn?  What did he do instead? What could you do? Read this book to find out.  It may intrigue you.


Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this title in exchange for an honest review.

This is a quick and easy read basically walking us step by step through all the reasons why we should let go of our phones and mindless social media cruising - the irony that I read this on my smartphone is not lost on me.

I found many of the exemples a bit of an overreach and slightly demagogic (no, I don’t believe we could hike all over the US/world if we put down our phones) but I felt the book fulfilled its purpose because it made me think twice about some of my actions and what I could do to be more in the moment with myself and my family.

Overall a good book which I think everyone should read to pick up some ideas to live a better life.

Good idea - spend less time on our phones. And I get it. But just don’t think it’s realistic. Maybe I am just pessimistic auger reading this all but I think it’s ridiculous. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

The Amish aside, we’re all way too connected to our smartphones and way too dismissive of the real world. Author Paul Greenberg begins the book with a quote from the Vietnamese Buddhist sage Thich Nhat Hanh, “Life is available only in the present moment.” How many “present moments” do we miss by checking email, tweeting, “liking” on Facebook or becoming more involved with a celebrity’s family on Instagram than our own?

Greenberg confesses that, like the average American, he’d spent a little less than four hours per day on his iPhone — time he regrets not showering on his son. With a smartphone, “Every tick of the clock can be sold. Every minute can be bundled and shopped to a third party. And the power of the moment-merchants has grown apace.”

So Greenberg quit. Cold turkey. In 2019, he switched to a flip phone. Then came the hard part: “What could I do with 4 extra hours a day? Two extra months in a year? How could I change my life? How could I transform my world?”

I thought that Greenberg’s book would be a shallow one. While the book is slender, it certainly isn’t shallow. It served as a wake-up call to me. I’d never realized how much of my life (and sometimes money) has been stolen from me by Angry Birds, Spider Solitaire, Small Town Murders (don’t ask), Twitter and the ubiquitous Facebook. I haven’t quit cold turkey, but I have cut down — way, way down — since reading this. Thank you so much, Paul Greenberg!

In the interest of full disclosure, I received this book from NetGalley and Chronicle Books in exchange for an honest review.

Spectacular premise for reflecting on the time sink that is technology/screen or in the palm of our hands. The author brilliantly summarizes and accurately portrays a number of facts that make you rethink the "technology free" life you are living. The prompts to the reader to actively rethink the path you have chosen and the time you have "freely" given to the phone is impactful. I highly recommend my generation this book and I would have liked to see this frame the concern for elderly generations that have not been as aware of the time sink that is technology devices.
The illustrations both visually and factually have made me reconsider the time I hold in my hands.

Thank you to Chronicle Books and NetGalley for providing me with an advanced copy of this book.
Within the first section of the book, I was hooked. This book is so important with the time that we're currently living in. It's tough to but down our phones but so necessary. The conversation between Paul and his son broke my heart not just because it's a tough circumstance to find yourself in but it very much could be my story. I loved his advice throughout the book and the pictures were great to include, as well. Hoping to get Paul on my podcast because I think listeners would really benefit from his experience.

Goodbye Phone, Hello World: 60 Ways to Disconnect from Tech and Reconnect to Joy
by Paul Greenberg

No sure what I was expecting from this book but find myself compelled and inspired to try some of his ideas to take myself away from all today’s modern tech.. I think we are all too guilty (I put my hands up) of spending too much time on our smart phones and iPads when we should be doing ‘other’ things . I think everyone with a phone should read this book!

📚 R E V I E W 📚
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Goodbye Phone, Hello World | Paul Greenberg
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Hands up if you're addicted to your smartphone? ✋
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My new phone has a wellbeing report on it and it tells me how many times I unlock my phone. How many hours I spent on Instagram. Yesterday alone it was 90 and almost three hours respectively. Which is kind of embarrassing.
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Admittedly, the unlocks were a little above average because ironically I was reading this book on my phone (it's an ARC courtesy of @netgalley and only downloadable as a PDF!)
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This book is packed full of facts with a few tips thrown in. It gives you a real wake-up call about your smartphone usage. It's a really quick read too with beautiful illustrations. It's really easy to digest and feels like the kind of book you'd pick back up again if you realise your phone habits are getting out of hand.
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📱 The average person uses their phone for four hours a day. This equates to 1400 wasted hours a year. Or two whole months.
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📱 I read at a pace of roughly 50 pages an hour. So a 350 page book takes me 7 hours to read. If I reduced my phone time to just two hours a day, I'd be able to read an extra 9 books a month. Which is an extra 100 ish books a year.
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📱 If you decide to pick up knitting as a new habit to replace your phone time, you could knit a scarf in a few days. Once you've mastered the basics, the average knitter can make a 4ft scarf in about 8 hours. That would be Christmas sorted!
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This book is fab and something in an age of device addiction and text-neck, we could all probably do with reading. My only call out on it, is I was expecting 60 explicit tips on how to reduce my smartphone usage. You know - set app usage limits, don't use your phone before lunch time, declutter your phone etc. This book wasn't that. It had a few tips like that throughout, but it's aim was to make you realise that that wasted time could be so much better spent. And actually, in so many ways that's far more powerful.
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I give this ⭐⭐⭐⭐ / 5

What a fabulous little book! I enjoy books on minimalism and I read Cal Newport's book, Digital Minimalism, that the author of this book refers to several times. Smartphones and other screens are becoming a huge problem in today's society; I see it everyday in myself, my kids, my husband, and my friends. I love how this book is organized. The introduction explains why he wrote the book, the stolen moments between him and his son due to smartphones. I loved reading his reflections on this. The pages are short and simple. I also loved the eye catching art on the pages. There wasn't new information I've hadn't heard before, but I appreciated the book as a whole. Highly recommend!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the early review copy. I must say, though, that experiencing this book as an e-galley when it so frequently extolls the virtues of paper and hard copy, feels off.

The author has structured this book as a bit of a laundry list, and it's up to the reader to see what will resonate and stick. There are some true soundbites that give one reason to pause, reflect, or research - and then a lot that just feels like a regurgitation of facts and quotes from elsewhere.

The introduction where the author talked about all of the time he’s spent on his phone instead of with his son grabbed at my heart, as well as his decision to change that when his son wanted a phone of his own and he was explaining the importance of placing limits. It’s a good book for when you don’t have a lot of attention to devote, but I’m not sure how much of it I’ll really take with me other than the idea that we spend a lot of time on our phones that could better be used elsewhere. For me I found Catherine Price’s ‘How to Break Up with Your Phone’ to be more useful, which he actually mentions a few times in this book. But if you haven’t yet realized the hold your phone might have on your life, it might be a good introduction.

A fast read discussing an important topic nowadays. The false busy we deceive ourselves with and the mad need to be always connected depriving ourselves from privacy and precious real time living.

One of my goals for 2020 was reducing the amount of time I spent on my smartphone = something which has been increasingly hard in the past few months with the current state of the world. I've read a few articles on reducing smart phone usage/etc. - but I was really hoping for a more concise book/collection of ideas to help me achieve my goal and this book did just that.

Overall, it does a great job of outlining different ways to reduce our interactions with smart phones (timers, how to improve your sleep, etc.) and the author keeps it interesting by inserting different quotes and anecdotal stories so that it doesn't just read like a guidebook or list of tips. It's an easy read and I finished it quickly - and definitely learned a few new tips. I wouldn't say all of the information in the book is revolutionary (e.g. stop looking at devices 2 hours before bed has been said many times) - but it served as a nice reminder and did include some tips I hadn't thought of.

If you're looking to change your relationship with your phone or examine your tech habits - this book is a concise and easy way to start doing just that!

Actual rating: 4.5 stars.

This was such an informative, inspiring and easy read. Paul Greenberg opens the book with a strong opening about how he came to quit his smartphone and then continued on with evidence from various resources supporting the suggestion to drop the smartphone.

The practices at the end of every segment were amazing and easy to practice. The formatting of the beginning of each chapter was clever. Overall an enjoyable read!

Amazing book filled with so many cool facts that will make you wake up and begin to change things in your life. This book confronts you with the real truth about tech, backed up with scientific research and useful little and drastic things you can do to improve not only your health but restore the connection with humans you love around you. Even though there were some eastern practices that I'm not in favor of, you can easily implement all the other ones and strife for a tech-free life that will help you see the world with new eyes.
ps. The pic inside the book are so cute, too!

This is a self-help type of book. Very well done and ideas to help you disconnect. I really enjoyed most of the ideas and tried a few with my family. I would recommend if you feel like technology is taking over your life. Live life not in technology!

This was a truly fascinating and contemplative read. The book starts out by letting the reader know that the average person spends 1400 hours on their phone each other. Then, the author breaks down better ways to improve yourself, and how to better allocate that large chunk of your time. As a millenial myself, I find myself very attached to my phone. I found this book was a nice quick read that really got me thinking about intentions and how I want to use my phone and give my time. This is a great short book that really does help to give tips to for people to reclaim their time and conquer the addictive nature of smartphones. I will definitely be recommending this book in the future.

This was a reminder to not be on your phone so much and to live in the present. I am guilty of being on my own phone a lot so I thought the facts of how much time was wasted on our phones was interesting and helpful. I aIs loved the illustrations!

Highly recommend this book to everyone who is on their cell phones often. The amount of things we could accomplish if we unplug is amazing. Insightful examples of how much we miss in life when on our devices. This book also lists several ways to unplug and enjoy yourself, while bettering your life.

I just read this book, courtesy of Netgalley, and overall, I enjoyed it. There were some parts where, I thought, umm, this should already be coming sense, but thought again, uh, common sense isn't quite so common. This isn't coming out till later on this year, but this talks about the ways all of us serious smartphone and techie users can and should get back into more, real life, versus online life. Myself personally, this also speaks to us just into the techie mantra, due to technology becoming more and more predominant in life and the world trying to become more controlling, by forcing us into this way if life.
I definitely say this is a must read for anybody who's trying to figure out how to get their family and/or friends to be more engaging in the now, versus engrossed into their devices.