• Tim Newcomb

During my annual family reunion in South Carolina this summer, I lost my phone. It happened during our quadrennial Beach Olympics competition — a goofy version of the 19-day extravaganza that was about to start in Paris.

In the relay race "event," my part involved filling a red Solo cup with ocean water. I sprinted from the dry sand into the surf, bent down and scooped up some water — forgetting that my iPhone 11 was tucked into the waistband of my shorts. I felt it slip but was distracted by not wanting to drop the cup. I didn't even see the phone land in the water. By the time I reached for it, the undertow had swept it away.

When my relatives heard about my phone, a small army of them trudged into the water, determined to find it. "Are you freaking out? I would be freaking out," one of my younger cousins asked me.

I wasn't, actually. I felt oddly calm — maybe because I'd spent so much time at the beach reading work emails?

When it comes to technology, I'm generally an early adopter. I've had an iPhone since 2008. It's an incredibly powerful little supercomputer that tracks my daily steps and lets me communicate instantly with friends around the globe.

But smartphones have a dark side.

A few days before I lost my phone, I learned from a friend in London that Joe Biden had dropped out of the presidential race. The message flashed across my phone screen while I was filming my family's synchronized swimming "competition," in which small children and middle-aged adults attempted adorably choreographed lifts and underwater somersaults.

I missed the best of it, though; I was distracted by the Biden news. I discreetly scanned my phone to confirm it from multiple sources, then couldn't resist telling a couple of uncles and cousins, distracting them, too! I cheered for the swimmers, but my mind was elsewhere.

If you have a smartphone, chances are you've felt the same compulsive desire to check messages and react. It's not an accident. These devices and the apps that run on them are designed to hijack our attention.

Normally I have safeguards in place that help prevent it. I took Facebook off my phone years ago. I read news apps but never enable notifications. The only interruptions I allow are messages from family, friends and colleagues — that's why the Biden news broke through.

If it's a struggle for an adult like me to set boundaries with my phone, it's much harder for kids and teens whose brains are still developing. In this week's cover story, "No Phone Zones," education reporter Alison Novak tracks a growing local movement among educators and policy makers to restrict students' access to their phones during the school day. The goal: to keep young people present with teachers and peers — and focused on learning.

Novak spoke with teens who are well aware of the problem, including Harwood Union High School junior Cashel Higgins, who told her: "I think that every student in the school does know they're addicted to their phone, but at the same time they don't want to change because it's easier not to."

That's why the adults are stepping in. Thetford Academy head of school Carrie Brennan put it this way: "We've tried to frame it as, 'This isn't a punishment. Maybe some of you will ultimately see it as a gift.'"

It is. Though I spent a day at the beach without my phone, I used my laptop to order another one — I upgraded to an iPhone 14 and picked it up at an AT&T store nearby. I recovered a cloud backup of my old phone with my synchronized swimming videos, contacts and work documents intact.

I like my new phone; I even drafted this column on it, typing with my thumbs while sitting outside in the sun.

I wrote it a few days early so I could spend Labor Day weekend camping in Groton State Forest, blissfully unconnected to Wi-Fi or a cell signal.