At the time of writing this article, I’ve been living without social media for 3 years and without a smartphone for 2 years. Everything started as an experiment motivated by my privacy concerns. I ended up living like that for an entire different reason: peace of mind.
Technology has given us instant access to everything. From internet with all of humanity’s knowledge, to food delivery at our door, or even cat videos, you have an app for it. But technology has also given everybody access to you, and that’s bad. Not everything requires an instant response, nobody will die if you answer a text message later today or even tomorrow.
This sounds appealing, and even maybe plausible… except that I was one of those weirdos who held out as long as possible on Windows Phone, and even though I thought it was a superior OS, still eventually gave in because of apps. (Do I hate going to the ATM enough to keep a smartphone I don’t want? Apparently.)
I didn’t used to keep my phone on me nearly all the time, then I started needing reminders to take medication a couple times a day. I’m testing out whether my Fitbit alarm could fill that role for me — if so, I could stop carrying it around.
I still have my old digital point and shoot from circa 2004 — I’m curious how teensy the photos are 😂
Another thing I use it for often is recipes… but I’ve been considering getting a new computer, so my laptop could become a floater and live downstairs for that purpose instead 🤔
The cheapest Garmin car GPS model on their website is under $200. Frankly, I don’t even need directions most of the time, it’s just helpful if I go somewhere horrible to drive like downtown Seattle.
The thing is, I do want to have a phone available when I drive somewhere in case I break down. But a bit of looking around made it sound like AT&T is a harder network than others to use some random cheapo dumb phone… and dumb phones that’ll work are actually not that cheap ($60+?). So probably I won’t do it 🤷♀️
See also: How to live without your phone by Sam Kriss
I stopped playing Fruit Ninja, eventually. But for nearly fourteen years afterwards, I stared at a smartphone every single day. Five thousand days, all in all. I can’t think of anything else I’ve done with the same level of commitment. There have been days where I’ve had nothing to eat or drink and there have been nights when I didn’t sleep. But until very recently, I never once went twenty-four hours without remembering to look at my phone.
After a while without my phone, I started to really notice how much everyone else was staring at theirs. On public transport in particular. Every adult is sitting there, pushing around coloured squares and popping coloured bubbles. They are playing with toys for babies. Now look at their faces. These people are not being entertained. They’re not having fun. They are turning their brains off while they wait.
Not using a phone taught me what a phone is really for. It’s not for communicating with other people, getting directions, reading articles, looking at pictures, shopping for products, or playing games. A phone is a device for muting the anxieties proper to being alive.
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