What’s on Your Home Screen, Farhad Manjoo?

Exploring a very messy screen with the ‘New York Times’ columnist

Farhad Manjoo

This is “What’s on Your Home Screen?” a Q&A column from OneZero. We want to understand more about how people use their smartphones—those life-consuming devices we dump hours into every day—to pave a path toward a better future. Or at least a more reflective one. We’ll add new entries regularly, and each will feature a new interview with a notable person about the apps they use, how they’re organized, and whether those red bubbles drive them nuts.

Farhad Manjoo has written about technology for years and currently serves as an opinion columnist at the New York Times. In November, he advised readers to “slow down and be mindful” as they interact with new devices and the companies that control them: sober guidance from a man who knows how to practice discipline with his own gadgets and apps.

Or so you’d think. Here’s the thing: Farhad’s iPhone home screen is a disaster. A mess! It’s glutted with apps, notification bubbles (153 unread messages, according to the screenshot he sent), and the promise, via a series of dots positioned just above the bottom dock, of 16 pages filled with more. Honestly, it made me feel a little sick.

“The number of unread messages, it’s basically been 153 on my phone for a long time. I just think of 153 as zero.”

So we talked it out. I learned that Farhad thinks of himself as a “searcher,” not an “organizer.” He has a very deliberate way of interacting with his iPhone, even if what’s on his home screen looks like a jumbled mess.

What follows is our chat, edited for length and clarity.

OneZero: I don’t need to tell you that tech mindfulness is a big topic right now. So, I want to talk to people and have a conversation about how they use their screens.