Playing mind-numbing phone games used to be my guiltiest pleasure. I would spend hours on the couch matching rubies, connecting dots, slinging irate birds. But now I channel that energy into filling out the pages of Boredwalk Activity Books.
This literary-themed activity book is filled with brain-teasing puzzles and games that can help you cut back on screen time.
I was initially drawn to these books because of the art, but I’ve stuck with them because they’re genuinely fun to use. The paper is nice, and the covers are sturdy. And the puzzles are entertaining — without being so easy that I can breeze through them without thinking.
There are tons of activities, and the books come in cute, specific themes. I have a storybook-themed one and a ’90s-kids-themed one, and they both tap into a kind of nostalgic, Highlights-magazine feeling.
Most importantly, these activity books scratch the same itch the phone games did, without relying on a screen. Instead of finishing a game and wondering where the time went, I can look through the pages of solved puzzles — the physical proof of my labor.
I don’t think I’ll ever be one of those people who ditch their smartphones forever. My iPhone is incredibly useful: I need it for navigation, communication, banking, travel, work, and plenty of other everyday tasks. The goal was never to pretend I could live without it.
Instead, I wanted to break the habit of treating my phone as the default solution for everything. By replacing a few apps with notebooks, books, clocks, CDs, photographs, and activity books, I’ve been able to create a little more friction between myself and my screen. And that friction has turned out to be exactly what I needed.
This article was edited by Hannah Rimm and Catherine Kast.
