Bye-Bye Smart Phone, Hello 1999
Following my blog about WiFi, I wrapped my smart phone in tinfoil and now carry it around in a small metal My Little Ponies lunch box.
Haha. Not really but I was very tempted. The tinfoil seems like a plausible idea. I'll put that one on the back burner for awhile and just do my yearly phone detox. Every year for a month I ditch my smart phone and revert back to the dark ages. Yes, that dismal period referred to as the "90's." It was a simpler time. A time when we couldn't control our house with our phone or check our news feed half a dozen times a day. I actually read a newspaper made out of, GASP, paper.
I am completely realistic regarding the convenience of smart phones. I have so much at the tip of my fingers. However, I find it draining. That ability to constantly be connected. There is just a pull with a smart phone that isn't there with a simple text phone. I find that when I have a smart phone, things take on a different urgency. Emails, whatsapps, google this or that. With a simple cell phone, I even answer my phone less. Which is great! Why should I be reachable at all hours of the day? Lets reach back twenty some years. Anybody out there have an image of either of their parents hunched over twelve squares inches of glass and metal for any amount of time a day? Did mothers talk on the phone all day. No, because then they'd have been tethered to the wall.
Today I am doing the switcheroo. Regular ol' cell phone. My smart phone will be parked at home. I'll sit in traffic without Waze, or just use my own form of GPS. Its also free and easy to use like Waze. I just roll down my car window and ask for directions, maybe honk a bit to get some other drivers attentio. Then I get convoluted Israeli directions, drive around in circles, repeat. Repeat several times. Repeat until I happen to ask the same driver for directions twice. Wait until he finishes laughing. Follow him to Ikea. Yup thats what happened last year but I'm still gonna do it again!
I'll check my whatsapp once in the morning and once in the evening. I'll be missing phone numbers that are stored in my smart phone. But I'll feel more relaxed and hopefully my lack of phone connection will enable me to be more connected to that which really matters.