I had to choose between two frames for new glasses. My wife wasn’t with me at the eye care center. She is a better judge on these matters, so I took out my flip phone to take a picture of my options and texted it to her for her opinion.
The technician helping me commented: “Oh, I didn’t know they made those anymore.”
My efforts to disconnect never fail to surprise. As a fully functioning adult without a smartphone, I am an outlier. It is normal now to be tethered to the Internet, to be “on call” to all during waking hours (and at all times for those that keep their smartphones in their bedrooms).
Using a flip phone is not without its challenges. For example, I actually have to flip the phone open to see who is calling or texting – another layer to this communication process. And speaking of texting, yes: I have to push the number button three or even four times for each letter. It has forced me to ask others to call me or email me if the conversation goes on beyond a sentence or two.
(Sidebar: The coolest flip phone I ever owned was the Quantico by Motorola. It could be submersed in water, had great reception, could take a beating, and even looked cool within its obvious constraints.)
These intentional obstacles are part of creating space between myself and the world that wants my attention. With my iPhone X I was only too happy to oblige. The seamless barrage of messages, notifications, and reminders was a draw that I could not resist. Not to mention the sheer design of the iPhone, for example the visual attractiveness of the apps: colored buttons nudging my brain to push them.
If you feel resistance to these ideas, some designers at Apple may have agreed with you. Except one: Steve Jobs. He was reluctant to fully embrace the iPhone as more than just a tool for improving your life. As computer scientist Cal Newport describes:
Mr. Jobs seemed to understand the iPhone as something that would help us with a small number of activities — listening to music, placing calls, generating directions. He didn’t seek to radically change the rhythm of users’ daily lives. He simply wanted to take experiences we already found important and make them better.
The iPhone and other smartphones have now become for many of us “constant companions”, as Newport notes.
Under what I call the “constant companion model,” we now see our smartphones as always-on portals to information. Instead of improving activities that we found important before this technology existed, this model changes what we pay attention to in the first place — often in ways designed to benefit the stock price of attention-economy conglomerates, not our satisfaction and well-being.
This begs the question: who is driving how you live your days?
While Newport calls for taking a minimalist approach to your smartphone, such as deleting apps unless they truly add value to your life, I have taken a more extreme approach: treating my iPhone as an iPod.
It’s freeing to separate my personal connections from my professional ones. I use my iPhone now as a personal digital assistant.
- Things for creating to-do lists and reminders
- Evernote for scanning documents and notes
- Kindle for reading when I have the opportunity
- A couple of news apps for staying current with the world
I’ve been tempted and even tried out the more tantalizing apps on the device, such as Twitter. But before long my brain was addled by the mental draw to check what was being posted. I have learned that I need to make it hard to engage online, as well as easier to be present in my physical reality.
My kids and I now call it my “almost phone”. They will also pick it up at times and play games that they downloaded.
Recently, my son asked to create an Instagram account. He is an avid artist and wants to post pictures of his work. “Just to share your art?” I asked. He also requested following other artists and appreciating their posts. We agreed. He has an intention that is value-added. There are no false equivalencies here; the tool serves his larger purpose.
