Can our information technologies protect our attention rather than erode it? Can we use digital devices to help us focus and have more time, rather than be constantly distracted and interrupted? Can we use them to live richer lives, not just faster or more frantic ones?

The answer to all these questions is yes. In my book The Distraction Addiction, I argued that we could learn to use our technologies to help us be more mindful, and practice what I called contemplative computing. By recognizing our tremendous natural-born ability to use technologies to extend our cognitive abilities and memory; by observing how today’s technologies do and don’t work; and by experimenting with new habits and practices, we can learn to use technologies more wisely, and in ways that make us wiser.

In this book I show how to apply the principles I outline in The Distraction Addiction to one of our most useful yet hard-to-control technologies: our smartphone. I’ll show how you can turn your smartphone from a source of interruptions and a device that reflects the interests of software developers and social media companies, to a tool that protects your time and attention and is built around your needs.

The book focuses on one of the most important and addicting smartphones, the iPhone. It draws on my research on contemplative computing, interviews with smartphone users, conversations with app designers, and my own experience as an iPhone user. I’ve had an iPhone for five years, tried hundreds of apps, and have completely offloaded my memory for phone numbers onto it. (I haven’t memorized a phone number– other than immediate family– in years.) I love my iPhone. I carry it everywhere. So I need it work well, and work for ME. The problem is, in their default state, smartphones are like smart children.

How are they similar?

• They’re jealous of our attention. When they need you to interact with them, they need you now. Now Now NOW.
• All communication is equally interesting, and equally urgent.
• They’re oblivious to social cues or context. They don’t know when it’s appropriate to interrupt, and when they should wait.
• It’s a tragedy when you don’t respond to them.
• They’re clearly intelligent, but they don’t always *act* smart. You love them, but sometimes they drive you crazy.

The metaphor of smartphones as being like children isn’t just a literary conceit. Two decades ago, in their book The Media Equation Stanford professors Byron Reeves and Clifford Nass argued that users treat personal computers like people. Of course, everyone knows that computers don’t have feelings or personalities; but after a lifetime of learning social rules, anthropomorphizing animals and complex technologies, and being presented with interfaces designed to appeal to human emotions, it’s easy for us to apply the social rules we use with other people to our interactions with computers.

Today, we’re too often overindulgent with our smartphones, tolerating their bad behavior and letting them demand too much of us. We deny ourselves the benefits of setting generous but firm boundaries, teaching them to be more helpful and mindful, and giving ourselves some “me” time.

In other words, it’s time to help your iPhone grow up, to teach it to stop behaving like a demanding child, and start performing like an executive assistant.