I am a slave.
[Image credit: MiYung Youn]
I didn't know I was, although I probably should have. I am a slave to my smartphone.
I am reluctantly the proud owner of an iPhone 6 plus. I know I should probably be more a fan of open source options. However I have been sucking off the Apple teat since the iPhone 4, and feel very comfortable using it, zero problems.
Until this:
Not exactly #photography worthy, eh?
Like many other smartphone zombies out there, I love documenting just about everything at any time by snapping candid photos. To my surprise, almost instantaneously my camera started taking really crappy pictures like the one above. This was a pretty cool moment where my son won a jackpot on a silly arcade game at a Dave and Busters in Indianapolis, IN. Moment ruined forever.
I did my normal internet digging to see if anyone else had troubles with their iPhone taking blurry pictures like this. Turns out, this is a pretty common problem with iPhone 6 plus phones exclusively.
I found out there is an entire replacement program that will take care of this problem for free. Sweet deal, right?
Wrong.
I handed my phone over after school to the local Apple store early evening yesterday. I got it back at after school today. What happened in between was a series of anxious and revealing moments about me and my addiction. My stupid smartphone addiction.
I watched in horror as someone was taking my phone, my baby, into their hands. Someone else holding your phone is like them holding an extension of your actual self.
They ran diagnostic reports and checked through my camera and photos for visual evidence of blurry photography. Imagine my horror when they scrolled through these pictures I had saved for a satire piece about the female personification of @cheetah I helped co-author with @anyx about month back:
"Oh those," I said. "It was for...a...satire thing I did for a site a while back." This basically the look I received:
After verification of my camera problem, I was sent on my way with a guarantee my phone would be done by the next day.
When I left the store, I didn't really think anything.
Then, I instinctively reached for my car console to call my wife. No phone there. I never even thought to call my wife beforehand to coordinate anything involving our evening prior to handing over my phone. "Oh crap, I am so in the doghouse," was the only thing I could think.
I rushed home and tried to think about the best way to call my wife. Skype? I didn't think it would work. Google voice? My wife might think it was spam. We have no landline phone, so a billion points to me for saying at one point we would "never need one, like ever," the last time the conversation came up at home.
Facebook. Facebook freaking messenger.
That was the only thing that worked. I got on my desktop, and after some momentary distractions on Steemit because I'm only human, I reached my wife on Facebook. Everything worked out well, and we made our plans for the evening just fine.
Spending the rest of my evening without my phone and away from my computer felt just, oddly strange. For one, I didn't exactly realize how often I look at my phone. I like to pretend it is just to look at the time, but it always ends up being the time and something else.
I found I was paying attention to conversations more, picking up on smaller details I probably would have missed. I found out at open house, for instance, that my daughter is going to have a new inquiry based curriculum with an emphasis on multiple modalities of problem solving this year. If my phone was there on me at the time, my take away would have been that I have a daughter. Oh, and this is what I would have heard:
Panic set in when I got home. How would I wake up?
I have no working alarm clock in my house. My phone is my alarm clock. I had to get to school early. I am a notoriously hard sleeper. What if I show up late?
My wife generously offered to set my normal six alarms five minutes apart from each other on her phone. Because that is what loving spouses do. It's not easy being married to me.
I didn't really sleep well last night because of aforementioned fears. I was pretty groggy in the morning and was very concerned about all the people out there that may have been trying to get a hold of me. Should I put a message out there I am without my phone? How do I let people down gently I haven't responded to them within an acceptable time frame?
At school, I have no issues.
Being a teacher is an exercise in madness. I get one 30 minute unencumbered break time every day. Outside of that, my daily activities are like I am playing the The Flight of The Bumblebee on loop for eight hours. There is no time for anything else.
I would be lying though, if I said I wasn't thinking about the status of my phone almost all day. If for anything else, I also couldn't check my e-mail during the day because I set it up to exclusively require 2FA to login. The 2FA that is on my phone. The phone at the shop. The phone that is the extension of me. My baby.
After a few student help sessions and after school meetings, I finally got to pick up my phone.
I expected my phone to buzz with reckless abandon with tales of text messages missed and push notifications abound. Instead? I had one text message I missed yesterday from my wife asking me where I was.
Here were my social messages. Sure am glad I didn't send out an all points bulletin for my whereabouts:
My camera? Guess I'm glad I got that fixed too. I got a chance to send a sarcastic picture message to my wife while on the road home about the local traffic status. Glad that wasn't blurry or my point I'm sure would totally be lost.
Indiana University student move in day.
The point is, I'm lost.
I'm hopelessly lost without my smartphone. I suspect many of us are. I spent 24 hours of my life free from it, and even then I couldn't shake the feelings of withdrawal. It's one part lesson learned, and another part affirmation. Without this technology are we all lost?
I don't have a smartphone. I intentionally just have a little "dumbphone" that I only use for calls and texts (and clock, occasional alarm and calculator). I know that if I were to get a smartphone, I would have to face the temptation of checking it all the time and would probably give my children (ages 7, 5 and 3) less attention. Not something I want. My laptop draws enough of my attention as is. GPS would sure be handy, but I generally do fine with printing directions ahead of time (yes, on actual paper....gasp!). I'm glad you had this opportunity to learn how dependent you are on your smartphone. Good to get insight into yourself.
LOL, I am the same. Only I do use the internet on it when I am out and about, usually reading the news or checking cryptocurrency related things like when to buy or sell on Bittrex.
I get a bit embarrassed if I feel like I am being a smartphone zombie.
I get anxious if i leave my phone at home,like, real anxiety...that's why, i do it more often lately :)
Apparently I need to be doing more of that as well. This whole thing was a very revealing experience about my irrational dependencies.
Great post. I love to run with my iPod only (I need music to drown out the sound of me struggling for air), because it doesn't allow the interruptions that my phone does. It's nice not being able to be reached constantly, there's almost a weight that falls off your shoulders when you know it's just you and your thoughts. Once you get past the ideomotor response to constantly check your phone, there's a sense of freedom that comes over you when you're untethered from your cell.
What about 1 technology- free day every week ?
Make it a new rule to never post on shabos.
Haha, well, we all know what happened to Walter on Shabbos in Lebowski. Sometimes even our best intentions mean we still will struggle no matter what. Hoping to ride that struggle bus less in the future!
Many items have "evolved" as extensions of ourselves. Cars, clothes, tools, all ways to extend our influence in to the world. But few things are as personal, or as important, as an extension of our mind.
No other item in history could record our every thought, insight, and perception of the world around us with such accurate memory, in such great detail, as the smartphone. As such it IS our second brain. Our second conscience that reminds us to wake up, remembers the phone numbers and birthdays of friends and family, and allows us instant, unfettered access to the global mind of the internet.
It's a big deal, and a hard thing to let go of. Congrats for making it through. I dunno what I would do in your spot, but I doubt I'd be dragging a card table around so I could play a game of solitaire in the bathroom...
Well said. I know my whole post is a total first world problem. I should be worrying about where I am securing food or resources to support my family and I. Instead, I'm concerned about a rectangle. A rectangle that is essentially, as you articulated so well, my second brain. It's weird to take a step back and look at our existence sometimes. Even weirder if you are playing solitaire in the bathroom while doing so!
On the one hand, you can see it as a first world problem but on the other, if I had a literal, biological, "second brain" that i could carry around as a backup, I would take GREAT CARE of that mushy blob, and be very weary of ANYONE who dared ask to touch it, much less OPERATE on it to restore some busted functionality covered by warranty. I dont think all of your issues are as unfounded as you may want to dismiss them as. Sure, tiny rectangle, and if you were already starving or without home, less important. But as it stands, holds a lot of personal secrets that could be exploited by others. Past GPS locations, pictures of house, friends, family, etc. It's got a lot of space for skeletons in a tiny rectangular closet.
I think a lot of people will empathise with this. Modern life and communications basically assume you always have a mobile phone.
Without it and I have experienced that too when I had a phone problem it can be difficult to live life the way most of us are accustomed too nowadays.
That said I think there is something to be said for deliberately disconnecting sometimes. I have to get my eyes tested because I'm diabetic on a regular basis.
When they dilate your pupils your vision becomes very blurred for several hours so you can't read anything close up.
This forces you to stop using technology particularly your phone and I must admit initially it is tough but after an hour or so the relaxation and lack of stress I feel is great!
Of course when the effect wears off I'm back to the same ways lol:)
You are absolutely right. It's so often the feeling I am missing out on something, even though I can't quite articulate what that something is all the time. I like your ideas of disconnecting though, hoping to do more of that in the future.
haa so many people addicted with their smartphone
@politicasan2
Sometimes I stay away from my phone. Life's so much better.. But when I get back to it I have to deal with a few angry friends.. lol!