They Tried Life Without a Smartphone – and Liked It
By Cheryl Harbour

The other day, I was at a playground with my son and four-year-old grandson. To give them some quality father/son time, I was staying in the background. Just sitting there felt strange. It felt purposeless. So I admit it -- I pulled out my phone and made myself busy. You’ve seen it coffee shops, bars, airports – the ever-present smart phone.

People in their 20s and 30s can’t even remember a time without smart phones – but baby boomers can. The term was first used in 1995, but three years earlier, the “Simon Personal Communicator" was introduced by IBM. This device could be used to make calls and send and receive emails, faxes and pages, as well as taking notes, saving addresses, and making appointments. Third-party applications were complicated. Fifteen years later, Apple released the first iPhone – and the rest is history.

I’m not advocating we throw our smartphones away – but I was curious how people get along without them. I thought I’d borrow on their experiences and share them here.

A writer for Fast Company named Kathleen Davis proudly writes about still not having a smart phone. She doesn’t want to be one of those people compulsively checking their phones – by some estimates as often as 46 to 75 times a day.

She’s also the mother of a young child. So, while she started her smartphone-less journey before her child was born, she’s now even more committed. She makes the point that many people believe that “being raised on smartphones and social media has led a generation of kids to be depressed and lack empathy.“ (Well, a smartphone is certainly a handy way to keep a five-year-old quiet in a restaurant – but isn’t that cheating?)

Another article in Fast Company written by Michael Grauthaus tells about the time he gave up his smartphone for a week. Just a week. He admits he was addicted.

At first, without his smartphone, he felt isolated. He worried his work as a journalist would suffer. He couldn’t instantly find answers. He couldn’t pay for anything by phone. He couldn’t effortlessly play music. No games. No newsfeed. All of this “deprivation” led to anxiety and then…relief. He started interacting with people again “IRL” (in real life). He fell in love with newspapers again. His mind was free to wander.

How did this end? Did he decide to live forever in this state of smart-phone-free euphoria. No. He welcomed it back as a useful tool, but decided he could set boundaries. And, who knows – maybe he will.

If you empathize with feeling like your smartphone might be just a bit too entangled with your life, I came across something that might help. It’s a phone that must have been listening in on our concerns. It just might give us what we’re looking for: freedom from being connected to our smartphone all the time.  It’s called a “light phone,” and its tagline is “designed to be used as little as possible.” The phone’s only function is to make calls and receive calls and it holds a very limited number of phone numbers in memory. So you could actually take it out to dinner and experience a little more peace and quiet. Maybe there are times when “light” just might be right. 

Here’s the website for the Light Phone…with a disclaimer: It’s currently sold out. But it’s a beautiful idea.

 




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