At the beginning of January I purchased another smart phone. Essentially this ended my media diet and now I am back to the full swing of hateful, trollish, and divisive media. I’m just kidding, I’ll write for just a moment about some of the pros and cons I observed, of myself, over the months of NOT being constantly connected to a smart phone.
Having a basic flip (stupid) phone succeeded in ridding me of negative news media and the more pointless social media. In the several months I had the stupid phone I was finishing a business degree and I was taking calculus and managerial accounting. Some pretty tough courses that required my full attention and time. Happy to say I passed my courses and achieved my Associates degree in Business and Information Technology.
The original reason that I downgraded to a flip phone originally was because I found myself spending 2, 3, even 4 hours a day just needlessly scrolling. Looking at bull shit that happened three days ago that I had already seen like 30 times, and getting pissed off about dumb comments. flip phone simply changed that. Those hours no longer spent on my phone were now free to be spent on more productive and important tasks. Indeed this did take will power, to not just jump on the computer constantly, but I don’t have time to just sit around my house on my computer all day. Eventually the feeling of even needing to check it at all, just disappeared.
I seem to be less stressed out in general. I have written how I am plagued by social media and the scroll type arrangement of most websites. With the stupid phone, after about a month, I stopped needing to check my phone because there was simply nothing on it. No notifications, no games, no internet at all. Just talk, text, and a voicemail that nobody uses. We are really unaware of how much that incessant buzzing or ringing or dinging makes us think that we have to be checking on things all the time. It creates a sense of panic almost, and a need to check in to your device to see what it was about for fear you may miss something. It stresses us the fuck out. Now that I have had a smart phone again for the past month I still only use social media on my computer and I don’t check my device as much as I ever remember. I simply turned off all of the notifications for the various apps that come pre loaded on the phone and now it is a quiet brick thing that rings and can look up maps or take better pictures. It is no longer a staple of my every day activities, other than for communication or the occasional blog or news article.
My productivity went up drastically. I got more chores and cleaning adventures done than I think I ever have over a three or four month period. I’m not exaggerating, I really did do more around the house and I had more of a drive to handle tasks in general. I was way more proactive when it came to homework and I didn’t have anything readily available to distract me. I did well on assignments and finished strong.
There were some things I missed about having a smart phone pretty much the whole time. These things were mostly convenience related like lack of uber or other apps, no gps, no camera, and shitty text messaging interface. I thought that I would stop texting so much and call and use the phone to talk to people more. While I did call people more, I fast figured out that the standard mode of communication in the modern world is some sort of text message. I ended up just missing the full range key boards that the smart devices have. It just makes it easier to communicate in general. I quickly re learned how to T9 text but it was a pain in the ass. Menu’s are a nightmare and there is no copy paste function.
Overall, I still enjoy having a smart phone. I am a productive person and it benefits me to have some of the features. I just like the convenience and I have indeed gotten used to the higher quality camera and communication apps. I genuinely missed them and feel I communicate better now than when I had the stupid phone.
I will give the stupid phone every bit of credit it deserves. I was able to focus and get through some very intense classes. I felt my aptitude and proactive drive increase and I hope this stays with me. Downgrading ultimately reduced my dependency on the phone in general. I don’t needlessly check or even pick up my phone as much, I just don’t feel the need to, I hope this continues as well.
If you feel upset or stressed all the time, or like shit is overbearing and hopeless. I strongly encourage you to downgrade your phone, if even for a little while.. they have tons of super low cost cellular services that don’t require a contract. A break from the small screens may just be the breath of fresh air that you need in your life. There is a lot of negative shit coming out of those little screens.. If you feel like you need a recharge, maybe give it a try. It definitely helped me appreciate having one again, and gave me a needed bit of disconnection and reflection.
Thanks for reading.