These days our smartphone addiction has gotten so intense that many of us now habitually use the devices even when we’re supposedly unplugging. We listen to podcasts on our trail runs and endlessly document our weekend adventures for Instagram. All this has author Cal Newport deeply concerned. Newport has made a name for himself as a sort of canary in the digital coal mine, writing about the perils of our screen-dependent modern lifestyles. Last winter he published Digital Minimalism, a manifesto that proposes a reimagining of our relationship with technology that begins with a 30-day digital diet. In this first episode of a four-part series we’re calling the Nature Cure, Outside editor Christopher Keyes talks with Newport about his radical—but very simple—approach to technology and how it can work for everyone.

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Peter Frick-Wright (host): Just this past week, the New York Times ran a story about the latest technology scare, and it wasn’t about Huawei and government espionage, or the latest privacy breach. It was about you and your phone and how your kids think you’re addicted. The study, by Common Sense Media, found that about 4 in 10 teenagers worry that their parents spend too much time on their phone. Over half of those same parents admitted they spend too much time on their phone; but the fact that your kids are noticing your phone addiction isn’t the scary part of the study. What’s scary is that while both teens and parents reported noticing greater use of the other group’s smartphones, both groups reported less arguing about using their devices. We’re becoming more distracted and that distraction is becoming more normalized. That’s a problem, not just one of values, but health as well. Even as our smartphones consume more and more of our time, over the past few years we’ve begun to notice that there’s some very real world consequences to neurotically checking your Instagram feed every five minutes. 

It almost feels like we’ve lost control. We need a fix, and it shouldn’t surprise you that we hear it Outside have a suggestion: go outside. What might surprise you, however, is that Outside only began reporting on the health benefits of spending time outdoors relatively recently. it wasn’t until 2011 that we ran an article called “This is Your Brain on Nature,” and, as it happens, that cover concept was a late substitution after another plan had fallen apart. But it was a home run. When we saw the newsstand sales numbers, we immediately did what every media company does when they have a hit: we started working on the sequel. We’ve kept going ever since, assigning one story after the next that explores how nature can help us find balance and at least some semblance of calm in this new age of screens. 

And now, on the Outside podcast, we’re bringing you a new four part series called the Nature Cure, exploring not only the problems with our hyper-connected digital lives, but how and why getting out in nature can help. We’ve got stories about forest bathing in Japan; doctors actually prescribing time outside of their patients; and a scientist who says the feeling we get out there, he calls it awe, has lasting benefits that you can’t get any other way. But today we’re talking with author Cal Newport about phones, and why it’s so hard to put them down, and why the concept of digital minimalism is catching on. Of course, that does put us in the perhaps slightly hypocritical position of asking you to keep your phone on you just a little bit longer, but it’ll be worth it in the long run. 

Here’s Outside editor Chris Keyes interviewing writer Cal Newport about why our smart phones ought to all be sent to Vegas