Hoda Kotb made some big changes ahead of the New Year. In December, following her return from vacation, Kotb shared that she learned a ton about her lifestyle while attending a retreat. While she stayed at this retreat, she went without her phone for 10 days. Now that she’s back to her routine, Kotb noted that she’s “happier” without being on her device constantly.
During the fourth hour of the Today Show, which Kotb hosts with Jenna Bush Hager, the Where We Belong author opened up about her time off. Kotb told her co-anchor that she went to a retreat “where they take your phone away — that was one of the things.” At first, it wasn’t easy for her to go without her smartphone. But, eventually, she came to appreciate not having the device at the ready.
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“It was so funny because at the end, I walked out into the world and what I noticed was everybody was hunched over a phone – and no judgment because me too, right?” Kotb said. “But I looked around and I was like, every single person is hunched.” The Today personality wondered how the image would look to a person unfamiliar with this 21st century way of living, adding, “If you had slept for 30 years … you would know that when you woke up and looked around that everyone’s looking at this tiny box and holding it like it’s gold, and where is it, and if they lose it, they’re freaking out.”
In the end, Kotb asked herself, “Was I happier with it or happier without it?” She ended up realizing, “I was happier without it.” After coming to this conclusion, she went on to make a major change in her everyday lifestyle. So, she decided that she will only use her phone for “necessities.” Kotb also has a goal in mind when it comes to her phone usage, telling Hager that she wants to be able to stay “narrowly focused.”
Interestingly enough, the official Today Show site noted that this isn’t the first time that Kotb has spoken out about how much she uses her smartphone. In 2018, she told the audience that she was resorting to some unorthodox measures to try to limit her phone usage. The anchor explained that she would hide her phone in a Tupperware container so that she would stop checking the device so often. But, it seems as though her recent retreat was the thing that really did the trick.
