Reclaim solitude

Deliberately spend time free from input — including podcasts and audiobooks — to think your own thoughts.

Why it works

Solitude here means freedom from other minds’ input, not just being alone. A phone makes true solitude nearly extinct: every queue and walk gets backfilled with audio. Regular input-free time is when the brain consolidates, reflects, and regulates emotion — capacities that erode when you are never alone with your own thoughts.

How to do it

1. Identify the moments you reflexively plug in: commutes, queues, walks, falling asleep.
2. Leave the phone behind for a daily walk, or keep it but with no audio.
3. Let boredom and mind-wandering happen instead of treating them as problems to solve.
4. Notice that input-free is different from alone — silence next to people still counts.

Evidence

Newport coins "solitude deprivation" as a description, not a measured construct. It connects to research on mind-wandering, default-mode processing, and the value of reflection, which are studied in their own right. (mechanistic)

"Solitude deprivation" itself is not a clinical term with outcome data; the underlying value of reflective, input-free time is the supported part.

Common mistake

Assuming you already get solitude because you spend time alone, while actually filling every alone-moment with podcasts, music, or audiobooks.