  Smartphones are integral to modern life, yet research highlights the
cognitive drawbacks associated even with their mere presence. Physically
removing them from sight is a solution, but it is sometimes impractical and may
increase anxiety due to fear of missing out. In response, we introduce a simple
but effective use of augmented reality (AR) head-mounted displays, focusing not
on augmenting reality with virtual objects, but on diminishing reality by
selectively removing or occluding distracting objects, from the user's field of
view. We compared cognitive task performance across four conditions: the
smartphone being physically nearby, physically remote, visually removed and
visually occluded via AR. Our findings reveal that using AR to visually cancel
out smartphones significantly mitigates cognitive distractions caused by their
presence. Specifically, the AR interventions had effects similar to physically
removing the phone. These results suggest potential for novel AR applications
designed to diminish reality, thereby enhancing cognitive performance.
