How Deleting My Phone’s Browser Saved My Sanity (And Why You Should Do It Too)

The key to dumbing your phone is obvious and I urge you to try it:

Delete your phone’s browser.

This turned out to be the medication I needed to cure my phone addiction, but for reasons you may not have considered yet.

Something had to change

My phone is not just a technical device that allows me to make calls.

In fact, it’s a highly sophisticated computer that offers to instantly satisfy all of my immediate needs.

Our phones are amazing but they are also a constant distraction eating into our perception of the real world. They are an extension of our minds, there to provide us with small endorphin rushes 24hrs a day. They satisfy every single craving in an instant. Every single tingle of our mind can and will be followed.

But they aren’t a one-way system. Once picked up, you are bombarded with notifications, and small little icons backed by billions of venture capital funding are competing for your attention, sucking up your time to show you more and more ads.

Thereby, phones distort our experience of what it means to be a physical human being existing in a physical world.

I am grateful for all the innovation and conveniences our modern mobile phones and smart devices are bringing into our lives. However, I realised that I have to change the way I use them.

Just deleting apps and turning off notifications isn’t enough

I had tried the standard digital minimalism wisdoms for a long time:

• turning off almost all notifications,
• deleting apps I don’t really need (including almost all social media apps),
• turning on grey-scale mode to make apps less attractive (the new iOS 18 is very helpful in this regard if you want to keep looking at your photos in colour),
• and many more.

I did all this in pursuit to use my phone as a tool. I want to pick it up with a deliberate intention to do one single thing, and put it down again once I complete whatever I set out to do.

But my mind’s craving for the little sugar rushes never reduced. For one simple reason: almost everything can be accessed through the browser on your phone.

How to make this potato recipe again? I immediately found myself on the YouTube website on my phone’s browser. 3 hours later I had watched a gazillion YouTube Shorts without ever having had the intention to do so…

In Digital Minimalism, Cal Newport recommends doing a digital detox and deleting all social media and other apps: “the smartphone versions of these services are much more adept at hijacking your attention than the versions accessed through a web browser on your laptop or desktop computer. […] You don’t have to quit these services; you just have to quit accessing them on the go.”

Newport further suggests experimenting with apps that temporarily block your access to apps to introduce further intentionality and resist the fight for your attention.

I tried these and other ways of introducing friction. But they were just annoying. Often, they can be easily circumnavigated by and lose all their purpose.

I realised that all these methods don’t change anything about the ability and overall access to satisfy the quick sugar rushes my brain is craving.

I realised that on a more fundamental level, I had trained my brain to give in to every little craving and still having a browser on my phone allowed me to continue accessing whatever it was looking for.

If you move cookies to the other end of the table, so you can’t reach them easily, you will just stand up and get them.

Whether the cookies are in your reach or just a little further away, doesn’t change anything about the fact that they are in your immediate proximity. I continue to want them between your teeth.

I agree with Newport’s philosophy. But it was in Digital Minimalism that I first came across someone who actually deleted their phone’s browser that confirmed my hunch: I had to go one step further to stop the craving.

I had to throw the cookies out of the window, so the effort of getting my hands on them would outweigh the small pleasure of stuffing them in my face.

Delete your phone’s browser

I had to delete the browser from my phone.

But that’s quite extreme, isn’t it?

I thought so for the longest time.

What if I need to open some important link in a very important email?

What if I just need to open a website or follow a QR code to do something or unlock an experience in my direct surrounding?

Would I not deprive myself of all the amazing knowledge that’s out there and make the whole point of owning a smartphone obsolete?

Life without a mobile browser is much more convenient than you think!

About 2 months ago, I finally took the leap.

(To be exact, it wasn’t actually possible to ‘delete’ Safari on my iPhone. But you can deactivate it. Go to Settings > Screen Time > Content & Privacy Restrictions > Allowed Apps & Features.)

It worked.

The knowledge that I couldn’t access my browser caused me to not watch any YouTube video. No ‘just quickly checking my [insert social media here]’. No random scrolling on Amazon.

If I think of something I want to remember, I make a note to look it up later on my laptop. But whatever I think of is hardly ever important enough to warrant doing so.

The fear that I would be cut off from the world around me didn’t become true. I also started to use apps that I deem import enough to keep on my phone with more intentionality.

I started to search things using ChatGPT or Claude, or look up something in the Wikipedia app, all applications that don’t have addictive algorithms built into them.

If I wanted to follow a link to an artist I saw someone recommending on Bluesky (the only social media app I didn’t delete), guess what, Bluesky has a browser built in, just like many other apps, that lets me view a specific link but not navigate me somewhere completely different.

I found that the cravings of my mind for quick satisfactions were reduced. My mind became calmer. My screen time shrank.

I no longer exposed myself to LinkedIn feeds, YouTube Shorts and other digital slot machines.

I found that keeping the apps that bring value to my life help me be more intentional and reach a state closer to what I am looking for: picking up my phone with a specific thing to get done in mind, do exactly that, and put my phone down again.

And if I really really really need a browser in any given moment, I can always just activate it again or download one from the App Store. Then I just delete it again when I am done. In the last 2 months, however, I can only remember about two to three times that I actually found myself in this situation - much less often than anticipated.

Try it yourself

The friction introduced by deleting the browser from my phone was exactly what I needed, and I can only recommend it to everyone looking for a more intentional use of their phone (in connection with deleting all unnecessary apps).

The urge to pick up my phone reduced.

I found myself being more present and living my digital life with more intentionality.

I no longer follow everything my System 1, the brain's fast, automatic, and intuitive mode of thinking that operates with little effort or conscious control, threw at me at any given moment.

While it might seem drastic, the benefits - reduced screen time, improved focus and attention, and a calmer mind - far outweigh the inconveniences.

I challenge you to try it yourself.