Name: English Podcast for Beginners | STOP Using Your Phone for 24 Hours and See What Happens
Uploaded: 2025-08-07T03:09:10.000Z
Duration: 14 min 25 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Learning English with Podcast Conversation.

I'm your host, Tony, and today we have a very special guest joining us.

She's a brilliant mind and a wonderful friend, Jenny.

I'm really excited to be here and chat with all of our listeners today.

Today's topic is something I think many of us can relate to or at least wonder about, a day without a phone.

But for many of us, it's almost like trying to breathe without air.

We challenge ourselves to spend a full day, from morning to night, completely without our smartphones.

No checking social media, no quick texts, no scrolling news feeds, just an unplugged day.

Jenny, what was your very first thought when I proposed this idea to you?

Pure panic, just for a second, of course.

I immediately thought, how will I wake up?

How will I find my way if I go somewhere new?

It felt a bit like going back to, oh, maybe the year 2000 or something, when phones were much simpler, or even before that.

But then a wave of curiosity came over me.

I wondered, what would I actually do with all that extra time and mental space?

It was a mix of fear and excitement, honestly.

For me, the biggest initial fear was missing important work emails or urgent messages from family.

It's like a constant low-level anxiety that we might be missing out on something important.

But I decided, for this challenge, I would put it all aside.

So tell me, Jenny, how did you prepare for your phone-free day?

Did you hide your phone or just turn it off?

I actually put it in a drawer far away from my bed.

I charged it fully and then just put it away, out of sight, out of mind, or so I hoped.

I also set my alarm clock, a real, old-fashioned one, for the first time in years.

And I told my close family members, hey, tomorrow I'm going offline for a day, so if you really need me, you'll have to call my landline.

How did you manage to resist the temptation?

Ah, the landline, a relic of the past, right?

I put my phone in a box, actually, a box I usually use for old cables, and put it high up on a shelf in my closet.

And I used my smart speaker, you know, the one for music, to set my alarm.

It felt a bit like cheating, but it's not a phone, Tardit, so I allowed it.

Usually, my first action is to reach for my phone and check notifications, but this time, it was just quiet.

What was your morning like, Jenny, without the usual phone routine?

Instead of immediately checking emails or social media, which usually fills my head with a million things before I even get out of bed, I just stayed in bed for a few extra minutes, thinking.

Not about work, not about news, but just about my day ahead.

I saw the sunrise, really saw it, and heard the birds singing.

Then I went to make coffee, and I wasn't distracted by buzzing notifications.

Did you notice any immediate changes in your morning routine or your mood?

For me, the biggest change was how quickly I got ready.

Usually, I'd grab my phone, sit on the edge of the bed, and get lost scrolling for 15 to 20 minutes.

Actually, a proper one, not just a grab-and-go.

I realized how much time I lose in those small, unconscious scrolling moments throughout the morning.

Did you find yourself with extra pockets of time you didn't usually have?

I usually spend my commute checking news or replying to messages, but without my phone, on the bus, I just looked out the window.

I saw people, really looked at the buildings, the trees, the clouds.

It was like seeing my city for the first time.

I even saw a cute dog wearing a little sweater.

Normally, my head would be buried in my phone, and I'd miss all these small, wonderful details.

And at work, during my breaks, instead of scrolling, I walked around the office, chatted with colleagues, or even just sat quietly, planning my afternoon.

I totally relate to just watching the world go by.

It's amazing what you notice when you're not looking at a screen.

For lunch, yes, I definitely felt a bit disconnected at first.

My colleagues were all on their phones, as usual, and I just ate.

But after a few minutes, I realized it actually made me more present.

I tasted my food more, I was more aware of the sounds around me.

Eventually, I actually started a conversation with a colleague next to me, who was also just eating, and we had a really nice chat about weekend plans.

It was genuine human connection, not mediated by a device.

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English Podcast for Beginners | STOP Using Your Phone for 24 Hours and See What Happens

anxiety

absolutely

incredibly

present