Being that all of my friends were coming home for break, I
was practically attached to my phone from the minute I got in the car to drive
home from Ann Arbor. (Don’t worry, I
wasn’t the one driving.) Since the
beginning of the week, I had spent hours upon hours planning who I was seeing
at what time and creating schedules for my week on my phone. I’m sure you can only imagine the anxiety
induced when my phone died during the drive.
I’m happy to say, I did indeed survive.
This momentary lapse in time where I wasn’t able to have my
phone glued to me, I thought a lot about Mill’s “On Liberty” and his philosophy
of experiments of living.
We talked about in lecture how we have the freedom to
experiment and to do out-of-norm things in order to educate ourselves. We must also be aware of how others will
respond and be comfortable with the fact that they may not want to partake in
these types of things. As long as we
aren’t infringing on their wellbeing, we are free to experiment.
I realized that I myself had partaken in an “experiment of
living” in the past year. This past
spring I traveled to the Bahamas for my spring break. Initially I planned on having my phone on
because my parents were not coming with me and just for safety reasons
generally but when I got there I decided to challenge myself and lock it in the
safe for the week.
Now, this sounds like a very miniscule thing to do and it’s
not particularly risky at all, but at first it was very difficult. In fact, so difficult for most of my friends that
they decided they were willing to pay the high costs in order to be able to
check their social media sites and texts the friends who hadn’t come on the
trip. Being that I’m cheap, I knew I had
to stick with it.
What I failed to realize is the impact my phone has on
me. My phone is not simply just a way I
engage with others, but it’s also my watch, alarm clock, my ipod, etc. I, for the first few days, would stand at the
door of my hotel room trying to figure out what I was missing until I realized
it was my phone for at least two minutes.
After reading an article on Time Magazine’s website I found
that I wasn’t alone.
Check out these statistics*:
Nearly 60% of smart-phone owners don’t go an
hour without checking their phones.
Some 54% check their phones while in bed —
before they go to sleep, after they wake up or in the middle of the night. And
1 in 5 checks immediately after sex.
Nearly 40% check their phones while on the
toilet.
Some 30% check their phones during a meal
with others, and 9% check their phones during religious services.
Eventually I found this experience to be very freeing. I was forced to actually hold conversations
in person, depend on others to be on time, and also wear a watch. While after about a week of being back in the
United States I resorted back to many of my old habits, some aspects of my
experiment of living stuck.
If anything, I found this to be an extreme learning
experience. I’ve now realized that life
goes on without twitter, Facebook, and constant texting. That sounds stupid, but I really didn’t
realize the impact that all had on me.
Not having a phone forced me to be present. I was much more intuitive and able to connect
with my friends and the new people I met because I didn’t have my phone always
at my side and I was now giving them more than half my attention.
While it was simply just an experiment, it has altered my
habits on a day-to-day basis. I am
constantly ridiculed for being a “slow texter” because I like to leave my phone
in my room or leave my phone in my pocket when I’m with people. Especially when I was at home this past week,
I left my phone in my room when I would spend time with my parents and some of
my friends were frustrated- one of them to the point they called my house
phone.
The fact that I notice, even during lecture (oops caught
you!), people my age consistently texting really urged me to write this
post. It makes me wonder what others
feel about texting and the attachment our generation has to their phones.
Blair,
ReplyDeleteI actually really enjoyed this post. From my own personal experience, I have lived without a smartphone for 18 years of my life. I have had to be that person that doesn't have texting, can't check their facebook or twitter all the time and is very out reach during the day. This has often led to me being out of the loop with my friends and has even made it difficult to obtain my education (lots of classes use texting surveys as well as other mediums that favor smartphone users).
While I have often felt like I missed out on many things, I can now see that without using a smartphone I was able to focus better on the tasks at hand and to be able to enjoy my time with friends and family. I often found it very rude when my friends would constantly be on their phones when we were hanging out and was able to see how these tiny little devices can devalue time spent with others. What I mean by that is that you don't necessarily feel valued by others when they are checking their twitter feed over talking to you.
Just a week ago, I finally bit the bullet and bought an iPhone (my thinking being that it would allow me to network better). I am still pretty indifferent to the whole smartphone craze. I can definitely see how addicting the phones are, but I also remember how I felt when I didn't own one. I think that because of my experience with having a regular phone for 18 years will help me to limit smartphone usage.
I guess in the end, my experiment of living without a smartphone for 18 years could possibly have helped me educate myself to the disadvantages of smartphone usage. Great post! This really got me thinking about my technology usage.
I really enjoyed your post. I too took part in an experiment of living when I went to Mexico this past spring and chose not to use my phone. I agree that it is really hard to turn off your phone for an entire week because you use it for so many things! I remember the minute we landed back in the U.S. every one around me turned on their phones, but I almost didn't wanna turn it on. I had actually enjoyed my "experiment" away from technology, and knew I would fall back into the lure of texting, Facebook, and Instagram. On vacation, I hadn't felt the need to check my friends latest posts in a moment of boredom like I usually do, and it was nice. I think I am a little too addicted to my phone, as are most people age. I think we all need to take an experiment in living, put down our phones, and appreciate the living world around us.
ReplyDeleteBlair,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your post. I think you can could have expanded further and wrote about our dependance not just on our smartphones, but technology in general. Can you imagine going a week without technology? I don't think many people could do it. I recently took this experiment of living by going out on a wilderness trip. It was my first time and we were not allowed to bring technology of any sort. I wore a watch, used a physical map and compass, and made coffee without a coffee maker for the first time ever. The first couple of days I struggled without technology. I never realized how technology-dependent I had been until then. I eventually adapted to the experience and survived without too much anxiety. However, the first thing I did when I got home was check my phone. I had the TV one as I unpacked and I proceeded to surf the internet afterwards. Looking back, the experiment in living didn't change my habits much, but it was a great learning experience and made me realize how much we take for granted in this technologically-aged society.
Blair,
ReplyDeleteThis is a great post about technology and how dependent humans have become on it. I had a similar encounter when I went to the Dominican Republic for my spring break when I was a Senior in high school. When I got to my hotel I put my iPhone in the safe for the week and learned that life was a lot more simple without a cell phone for a while. Similar to your experience, I found it easier to have face to face conversations with people and remain completely engaged rather than being slightly distracted by what was going on with my cell phone. This made me realize that in reality your cell phone is really not that important at all. I think our generation has become very caught up in social networking, texting and all of these "easier" ways of communicating, that we do not truly know how to express ourselves when we see each other in person.
Thank you all for your comments!
ReplyDeleteKevin- I hope you don't get too caught up in the craze, but it's quite hard not to be. I do think you definitely had an interesting experiment of living yourself and I'd be delighted to hear about you easing into using your new iPhone. I remember when I first got a smart phone and at first due to the fact I didn't know half its functions, I wasn't too thrilled with it so I'd love to hear about your experience! Haha
Elyssa- I also think part of it being a bit easier is the fact you're likely with some of the people whose social network pages you would be checking. (I'm assuming your trip was with your friends but I could be wrong.) It's much easier to not feel like you're missing out on something when you're with your close friends. I commend you for not wanting to turn your phone on. I turned it on the second I was able to, I won't lie!
David- I find your trip fascinating and I think a trip like that would be invaluable for all of us. I don't think I would have done the idea of lacking technology completely justice due to the fact that there are so many things, such as a coffee maker, that I don't think of as technology. I have visited places where Amish people live, but I didn't get too much of a sense of what their living experience is like so I think I would've had difficulty. I also never thought about the idea of using physical maps and a compass either- I am extremely dependent on my iPhone's google maps, even sometimes on campus.. Total freshman problem!! I would love to hear more about your trip. I'm not sure if you have written anything about it anywhere, but if you have- please send me the link!
Lastly, Dillon- I agree completely. I think that the idea of not being able to express ourselves in person is such a relevant concept. Being that I am a Netflix fanatic, I stumbled upon the movie, Cyberbully, this past summer and your comment reminded me of it. I'm not sure if you're familiar, but from the title I'm sure you can pretty much figure out the plot line. Cyberbullying is just one example of how we use these media outlets, devices, and such to express ourselves in a less vulnerable way. Technology is not always the fantastic thing that we hope it is and it happens to create many horrible things as well as great things.
Thank you all again for your comments!
I agree with the ideas you have stated in this post, and I feel as though smart phones, laptops, etc. are ruining are ability to interact with others. It is much easier to look at your phone and text (or act like you're texting) in an awkward situation rather than try to overcome it by being social. I remember in high school when texting during class was banned our senior year and the teacher suggested that we leave our phones in our lockers. One girl protested that she feels "naked without her phone." This statement, looking back on it is crazy, but I see that most people today view their phone the same way. Their phone is a part of them. The one thing about constant texting and reliance on smart phones that bothers me above all is when people do it in front of their friends or in a group of people. The phone should only come in to play when you have no other source of actual human communication. And it seems as if many people would rather try to be social virtually over their phone instead of actually engaging with the people they are with. Hopefully this reliance on technology does not get out of hand, but as technology continues to become more advanced I am guessing that the reliance on smart phones will become even greater.
ReplyDeleteYou never really realize how ingrained technology is in your life until you lose it for a bit. I've had a couple spans where I've had no phone, and you almost feel as if you're disconnected from the world. In some cases, it seems like an extreme inconvenience, even though people in the past didn't have cell phones.
ReplyDeleteDuring spring semester this year, our house had no internet for around the first three weeks. It was interesting to see how much more efficient I was when it came to completing work that didn't actually require the internet. I had almost no trouble completing readings that would take me all day if I had the ability to access the internet. I probably did some of my best work in that time. As every college student knows, technology is always a huge distraction. It was an interesting experiment in living, even if it was one I didn't ask for.