Has anyone really given up their Smartphone?
I know that YouTube is full of people that swear that they have given up their Smartphones and gone to a dumb phone, and their life instantly got dramatically better. But, unfortunately, I don’t believe them.
I powerfully advocate spending less time in front of a screen and more in the real world. I have tried and failed many times at drastically reducing my screen time. I purchased a drawer full of flip phones just for that purpose. They each get a grand entrance; I boldly slip my SIM card into them and announce to the world that I am now free from the shackles of the Smartphone and that I am much more “woke” than they are!
That usually lasts a few hours; I made it two days once. It is only possible to get rid of it if you plan to move to a cave in Tibet. The world we live in is now predicated on having a smartphone. We have to admit it.
It can be Google Maps, iMessage, your banking app, or any other apps we use daily. You can’t give them all up. There are work-a-rounds for almost all of them; in theory, it can be done. Still, in reality, it would be an enormous pain in the ass and make your life more stressful, not less stressful, and isn’t that the reason that most of us wanted to give it up in the first place? To make life simpler and more accessible?
My latest experiment lasted about 36 hours. We were going to a 30th birthday party for my nephew. It was in the city, and we had about a 90-minute drive. So I had my sim in my little black flip phone, and off we went. The ride was fine; my wife had Waze on for directions. We got to the party fine and had a great time; nobody even noticed or cared what, if any, phone I had on me. Then we had the 90-minute ride home.
It was dark, and my wife can see much better than I do in the dark, so she was driving. That put me in the passenger seat for 90 minutes with nothing to do but look out into the darkness. I would typically get caught up with the sports scores and the latest news, check the weather for the next day, read some emails, return some texts, and buy some late-night Crypto or transfer a few bucks into my savings. There are plenty of things that would have filled up that quiet time.
