Every Monday · Anywhere · Free to join
One day a week without your phone
An invitation to make Monday a phone-free day so that you can reclaim your time and attention. Aim for the whole day or choose what works for you. Even a few less hours on your phone counts.
A familiar story.
Most days start the same, you wake up and reach for your phone. It’s purely reflex. Before you can say ‘Bob’s your uncle,’ the world comes rushing in…emails, messages, notifications, all at once, from one little phone. It’s the machine of the modern age.
Sleek styling inside and out. Instant access to the whole world and exceptionally difficult to put down. It’s your alarm clock, your newspaper, your entertainment, and sometimes even your telephone.
As the day rolls on, your screen time slowly builds, minutes turn into hours. Quick time checks become just one more “Follow me, I'm delicious.” and the day you planned to have takes on a different form, moulded by the algorithm.
But what if I told you there’s a better way? It’s not a detox, it’s not a challenge, just an invitation to reclaim one Monday each week.
On Mondays, we ditch the phone.
The arithmetic
234 hours
Less phone time over a year per person.
On average, we spend 4.5 hours a day on our phones. Taking Mondays off adds up to 234 hours you can take back over the course of a year.
41% of Brits
Feel their phone habits aren’t under control.
Many in the UK already recognize the impact of their phone habits and are looking for ways to improve while 41% say they have little or no control over how they use their phone or the internet.
72,000 t
of CO₂e a year, if one in ten of us did it
That’s the footprint our model assigns to the hours left aside if one in ten of the UK’s assumed 53 million smartphone owners aged 16+ took part. For scale, that’s roughly the CO₂ absorbed by 3.3 million mature trees in one year.
You had me at hello.
Are you in? Make the pledge, it’s a personal commitment to try Mobile Free Mondays in a way that works for you. It’s not a petition and no donation is required, and you don’t need to prove that you reduced your screen time. It just means you’re saying “Yes!” to Mobile Free Mondays and support the idea.
You can add your name to the public wall of fame, if you’d like to claim a spot as an early adopter. You can also choose to get updates by email, texts, or both for practical preparation, encouragement, and useful ways to explain the idea to others.
Every Monday · #MobileFreeMondays
One day a week
Make a personal commitment to try Mobile Free Mondays. No donation, petition, or proof required. Make the pledge.
A campaign by The Dead Good Club
Monday
Give ‘em a heads up.
Don’t leave your long distance lover hanging, waiting for your usual good-morning message. Imagine the whole day going by with them constantly checking their phone for you, sending messages with no reply. Rereading last night’s conversation. Was it something they said?
Don’t be ‘that guy’ who suddenly goes dark. Mobile free Mondays shouldn’t cause stress for anyone in your life. We want everyone to be informed and supportive, and for necessary adjustments to be arranged ahead of time.
A worried or stressed out ‘Pookie’ will likely make you use your phone more instead of less. So let them know the plan.
Explain what you’re trying, why you fancy it, and when you’ll be back in touch. It’s much easier when the people around you understand the plan and know how to help. Ask them to save non-essential messages for Tuesday. They might even want to try it themselves.
Sort out urgent contact methods in advance. Agree a route with anyone who may need you, whether that’s calls from selected contacts or using an actual landline. If you’re relying on your phone, check that those calls get through your settings, keep it charged, and test that you can hear it from wherever you put it. Keep medical alerts, caring arrangements, and other essential contact working.
If you need your phone for commuting or other necessities, consider automating app-blockers to turn on each Monday so you only have access to what you need.
Why Monday
Tell me why? I do like Mondays.
‘Someday’ leaves rather a lot of room in the diary.
Monday is already associated with starting afresh, so let’s use that feeling to try less phone time.
It’s not just a vibe, our team of researchers have found evidence for this “fresh start effect”.
Studies show that gym visits, diet searches, and commitments to pursue goals increase after calendar landmarks. The pattern held across multiple landmark types, a new week, month, or year, suggesting the effect is not limited to just New Year’s resolutions. These reset events create a psychological clean slate, so it’s easier to brush off unsuccessful attempts of the past.[1]
That’s why we chose Monday. If you’ve been meaning to use your phone less, a new week is a chance to leave last week’s binge in the past.
You can begin with the next Monday that suits you. There’s no punishment for missing one.
1. Dai, Milkman & Riis, The Fresh Start Effect, Management Science, 2014
Who runs it
A Dead Good Club campaign
