I have been, for most of my adult life, an addict. I am not addicted to drugs, or to alcohol, or to any other too-easily-glamorized substance. Rather, I, like many of us, am addicted to small, insubstantial, hits of dopamine. I am addicted to smartphone screens, to impulse-buying vintage on eBay, to Reddit, to unnecessary Lyfts between places I could just as easily and far more pleasantly walk or take the bus. I Amazon myself things available at my local drugstore. I waste too much time and spend too much money. My reports from Screen Time, when I can bring myself to read them without feeling sick, crest into six or seven hours. I usually feel sick. Every year, for almost a decade, my New Year’s resolutions have contained some iteration of “this will finally be the year I break my smartphone addiction.”

This year, instead, I made a few small but significant decisions.