Am I really the one choosing what I watch on my phone?

Rabbi Landau teaches that very often you are not. “You think you are choosing what to watch, but someone else designed what comes next and how easy it is to keep watching.” The feeling of choice is real, but the path was laid out by someone else.

He goes further: maybe the smartest thing a phone ever did “was convince you that picking it up was your idea.” The reason this works is simple: “the easiest person to control is the one who thinks every impulse is his own decision.”

So he offers a question to ask in the moment itself: “Next time your hand reaches your phone, who made the first move?” Noticing that an impulse is not automatically your own decision is where self-restraint begins, the walls that Shlomo HaMelech says a person without restraint is missing.

Going deeper: Rabbi Landau's teaching, level by level

Surface claim

Someone else designed what comes next on your screen and how easy it is to keep watching.

Fear, vulnerability, or tension

The person most easily controlled is the one who assumes every impulse is his own decision.

Deepest human truth

A person without self-restraint is like a city without walls; asking “who made the first move?” is the start of building them.

More questions from this teaching

• Why do I lose so much time every time I pick up my phone?