a A few years ago, I found myself in the bathroom without my phone and experienced a real panic. How can I fill those three minutes? Please don’t answer that. I’ve been battling phone addiction ever since, but progress has been slow. That is, until a few months ago, when I pressed the nuclear button. I heard that the most successful people used dumb phones or didn’t have a phone, so I was persuaded to accept the unthinkable. Everyone, I turned off the internet. And I have to tell you about the world I discovered.
First, the details. I didn’t want to spend money and I didn’t want to end up talking to the soccer players at work. So I turned off my mobile data. I was able to leave Wi-Fi enabled and make calls and send messages. But I deleted all the apps that provided what former YouTube designer John Zeratsky calls an “infinity pool” of content. All social media. Email. Google is also a collection of all things scrollable. “Can’t you find out?” my friend gasped. I couldn’t believe my phone call. “Are you serious?” it asked for the first time. And when I pressed that button, it really felt like I was dying. You shouldn’t wake up a sleepwalker, right?
The new world… was unbearably frustrating.
The new world I encountered was… unbearably frustrating. I had just started a new job. To access the building, a personal code had to be entered into an iPad, and a new code was required each time you visited. I, like Columbo, wrote this down from my email at home while scraping up scraps of paper at the reception desk. I was surprised that I didn’t have to receive a cookie to use the restroom. I was not impressed with the work. I couldn’t use Slack or Miro, and I still don’t know what they are. You missed an important email or put someone else’s work on hold. I didn’t know when the bus would come. I was always lost. My home life deteriorated. “I can’t open that!” When a friend sends me a link to something fun on WhatsApp, I cringe. I searched for clips manually from time to time, but it was never worth the effort. Nothing makes you feel like a pervert like watching Instagram stories on your laptop. I don’t know why.
I followed sleep hygiene advice and banished my phone from my bedroom. But without podcasts, I would have a hard time falling asleep. I fell asleep to the soft beep of my replacement alarm clock (which I received free with the shaver). One day I woke up at 2:41pm. The Luddite experiment lasted for weeks. The worst moment was when I offered to take a depressed friend out for cocktails. The menu was QR only, so there was a charge. Another time, I ordered a book to pick up at the store. Without another 4-digit email code, the bookstore won’t give it to you. Until my nose starts running. What kind of dystopia is this? Bookstores should have nothing to do with the code. It doesn’t matter if it’s QR, conducting, clothing, or Da Vinci. (Accepts bars and Morse code for a little fun.)
I see the world as romantic, and our duty in it is to be spontaneous and soulful. I’m like a male Amelie and it’s fun. On the other hand, this is a natural suspicion of something so computer-like. I don’t understand the excitement about AI. This is definitely the harbinger of our extinction, a black box riding a pale horse. Social media is self-hypnosis, a pocket clockwork orange. And I believe that the cell phone stuck to the hand is the root of all problems.
Our collective obsession with technology could be a problem. However, the term itself simply refers to applied science.
I will admit that I love couches, toasters, heat dryers, novels, hearing aids, and Dance Dance Revolution. It is foolish to think that technology = bad. In my failed experiment, the thing I struggled with the most was the bureaucracy.
When we are passionate about something, we sometimes end up messing it up. Considering my phone is addictive, it gives it extraordinary power. The opposite of love is indifference. This echoes what comedian and wisecracking Sarah Pascoe said when I complained about how many hours I was wasting on social media. She argued that even if we finally understand that social media is evil and destroys our souls and social democracy, we cannot quit using it. We quit because we were bored.
Ignoring my cell phone was an overcorrection. Without the power to burn, it would be impossible to survive in modern times. B. It broke the curse of habituation. As I redownloaded my apps, email, and internet, something felt different. I felt my phone doing something creepy and attention-seeking. And I started finding it boring. The way someone flirts too vulgarly can become boring. I started to think that my cell phone was poor.
I no longer consider myself to be in a war. It’s a rather mild boundary dispute. If you’re looking to spend less time on your phone this year, here’s my advice. You need to think that living on your smartphone is boring and fall in love with the real world again.
So for me there is no solution. Rather, it is an inventory of my passions. Joy is more important than success anyway. Write down more delicious and indulgent ways to soothe yourself and indulge without feeling guilty. Taking a bath, cooking, making eye contact with a goat, drawing with a banana. An exciting analog activity even in the middle of winter. The people, places, things, artists, and ideas and experiences that make me explode with the complex joy of being here. And I use my phone to schedule them into my week and create a little romance every day. Amelie would do that.
