My stepping out of the smartphone world was not intentional. Having accidentally killed my iPhone 4s by forcing it to learn swimming with me in the pacific ocean, I was left off the grid. A new iPhone was out of my budget and I didn’t like androids. I decided on a small call-or-text Samsung phone to bridge my downtime. Then life has changed!
This post is not to convince you to dump your phone. Rather a retrospective reflection on the past two and half years of smartphoneless life.
I do miss access to music whenever I want. An iPod shuffle partly solves the problem (thanks Christian). I do as well get lost a lot without google maps. However, two GPS devices (thanks Elke and Susanne) and asking beautiful ladies on the street eventually save the day. I do not have immediate access to google and consequently most of human knowledge. However, a set of Moleskin® notebooks (thanks Merve) are my usual company and capture most of my questions for a later google time. I can not check a restaurant, a book, a movie nor a product. Which is partly solved by asking people (Mostly they check their phones, thanks everyone!). More and more of things that I “miss” or do not have anymore.
However…
I grew to like this new life-style. I feel way more relaxed now than before.
When I had a smartphone, I checked it often. Facebook, instagram, twitter.. etc.. I had a constant nose in everybody’s life. I knew a lot about my friends and even people I didn’t care about. This was sometimes too fast that usually didn’t have enough time to emotionally process some events. A wedding in Italy, a friend’s mother in Egypt got cancer, a bomb in Belgium, etc.. Within minutes, my emotions were confused in a roller coaster. Needless to say that after a while, after knowing so many news too fast, you stop caring about all of them. They all become some post on your feed or a message in your inbox. Most of your connection with them is “reading” about them. I didn’t like this.. It reduced my daily experiences to a very minimal quality. And when I met the person that I read about him/her, I didn’t feel much. The first shock was absorbed by the crowded online input. I chose to reduce this to the couple of hours in the evening when I have access to the internet and social media.
When I am offline, I have more time to think, to reflect, and to be genuinely bored and left to myself. During my many years of smartphone use, I forgot how to deal with myself! The smartphone provided a constant escape from self. An easy distraction. Let me message him or her, let me check facebook, let me look at this or look at that. A constant seek for something to fill the void. After losing my smartphone, I had to re-learn dealing with boredom. I had to pickup the habit of thinking and daydreaming.. It is simply more time for me.. rather than looking at people’s lives or replying to their contact.
Besides, I have to memorise things now.. to calculate things.. to remember the road and directions.. these little cognitive tasks are very enjoyable for me..
This phase without a smartphone is very peaceful. I will probably get myself one in the future. But not now 🙂