If possible, I would like to switch to a less robust, more basic cell phone for work. Specifically, not a smartphone. Do you have any suggestions?
I sent this email to our cellular provider representative after 24 hours of not finding my school-issued iPhone X. My goal is to go back to a simpler device for phone calls and texts by the new year, which will be my Day 1.
What was the straw that broke that camel’s back? Not that I lost it, but that for those first couple of hours without my smartphone, there were several moments where I was not sure what to do with myself.
I wanted to check Twitter for updates on the Russian government hack. I wanted to see how many steps I had for the day. I wanted to assess how much time I had spent on my iPhone. Not having it available, I resorted to watching a rerun of Jessie on Disney+ with my kids (who happened to also be on separate screens at the same time). I laughed at a few of the scenes in spite of myself. When’s the last time I laughed due to my phone?
This unintentional break revealed how integrated my life was with the smartphone. Even my attempts at reducing screen time required a brief moment of screen time. Absurd.
There are benefits, for sure. I can snap a picture in the moment or listen to a podcast while driving, as examples. These are positives. The question remains though: do they outweigh the costs?
The primary cost of having a smartphone is my attention. What am I ignoring when my mind is fully engaged with the screen? Studies show that even when a phone is not in use but within proximity, our minds still devote at least part of our attention to the potential it offers for digital connection. (This is sometimes referred to as “continuous partial attention”.)
I do not want this post or future reflections to be a general critique of the Internet. We have benefited so much from being able to communicate online. For example, once scientists in China mapped the RNA sequence of COVID-19, they posted it on the web. Not long after, pharmaceutical companies had developed testing kits and started working on the vaccine we now have today, in record time. Between then and today, I doubt these scientists were checking their Twitter feed or their step count on their iPhone. They were too busy engaged in this important task.
That is my purpose here. How do I want to allocate my time? (I am using the verb “allocate” instead of “spend” to avoid money metaphors – more on that in a later post.) My priority is toward my family, my work, my interests and passions. But is it truly a priority if our attention is constantly elsewhere?
I have made strides toward untethering myself from the digital world and have written about it in the past. But these tools are insidious. They find new entry points into our worlds, like water flowing down a leaky roof. The surest way to addressing the issue is to act on our awareness of what the real problem is: our attachment to staving off boredom with a constant flow of information. My attention is no match for the all-too convenient access to all things digital. In other words: “iPhone, we have a problem.”
I’ll be writing more about my process on this site, with future posts rounded up at my newsletter. Sign up below – it’s free.