What a bunch of A-list celebs taught me about how to use my phone

By David Pierce , editor-at-large and Vergecast co-host with over a decade of experience covering consumer tech. Previously, at Protocol, The Wall Street Journal, and Wired.

It was, of all people, Justin Bieber who first opened my eyes to a new way of thinking about my phone. See, Bieber isn’t into phones. He ditched his a while back and became an iPad guy. According to a 2021 Billboard article, he wakes up in the morning, grabs his tablet, and checks in with his management to see what’s going on for the day. The idea was to “limit who can reach him.” This is something you hear a lot from phone-free celebs: they’re not trying to disconnect from everyone, but they are trying to get away from that feeling of being tapped constantly on the shoulder by all the calls, texts, and emails.

I’ve been obsessed with celebrity technology usage, or lack thereof, for years. In so many cases, it seems that once you become sufficiently famous — with millions of people hanging on your every word, millions of others talking about you all the time, and countless people in your life scrambling for your time, energy, and money — the only sane way to manage it all is to sever as much as possible. So many celebrities ditch their phone, disconnect from their social media, log off entirely. Everyone from Tom Cruise to Elton John to Sarah Jessica Parker to Michael Cera to Dolly Parton to George Clooney has extolled the virtues of a phone-free life. The internet practically revolves around A-list celebrities, and they often don’t even know.

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