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Thoughts on living without a phone for a bit over a month: A thread.
Life becomes much more of a logistical nightmare, mobile payments and apps such as uber are no longer accessible. If you're not in a multiplatform messaging system like imessage, slack, discord you communication is shot.
Your access to the internet becomes far more limited. You need to rely on other devices if any and as a result, everything you do become far more deliberate. Planning before leaving, use of social media etc.
Your mind does reset to being "normal". You can be more present in the moment because you no longer have the option to amuse yourself continuously.
The downside of this is the loss of convenience, you end up carrying around more things, pencil, pen, notebook actual book. My intake of music and podcasts plummeted because it was convenient to have them in my pocket.
It shows you who really cares also how valuable and dependent the world thinks you are. If you can drop off the gird for a month with no repercussions you are fairly free. High-level executives and others can't, the world is dependent on them.
The isolationism of Western culture becomes apparent, in public squares, transport even at parties people interact through their devices; using them as a medium rather than going directly to the source. We can be at two different places at once now.
It's a Black Mirror episode when I'm the only person without a phone and the first response I always get it "How do you survive?" Ironic something invented a little over a decade ago is ubiquitous. You can adapt fairly quickly if you choose to.
Time becomes an amusing characteristic, I went also about a week or two without a watch. Clocks are not in public places anymore, only on devices. Interesting that the construction we rule our lives is chained to us at the hip.
Phones are an expression of ourselves, meme culture is a thing. Check this out is apart of everyday life
Making connections and relationships with others is much harder. Getting someone's number is no longer an option and rekindling that becomes a fruitless task.
I think I made people uncomfortable, because I could give them my full attention. There was no escape from the present moment. I was locked there and then, while they could jump between worlds.
