March 2, 2015

30 Day Flip Phone Challenge: Day 1

At exactly 3 pm yesterday, I closed my Twitter app and opened Instagram, only to realize that I'd already seen/double-tapped on every new picture posted. So I got off that and turned to Snapchat, thank God! Someone had posted an update. Of course it was just a single Snap, so I went through that, responded to the Snaps I'd gotten, and made my way back to Twitter.  Standard right?

Except I might have been doing that for a little over two hours (let procrastination be my excuse), when finally I caught a glimpse of something different on my Instagram's popular page. Four pictures of the same book cover, posted by random people. Interest now spiked, I turned to my GoodReads app and decided I should add it to my long list of books-I-would-read-when-I-found-the-time (or when I wasn't wasting all my time idly transitioning between social media apps). Nevermind that the list had grown to 200+ books, what really bothered me was the mean little "Reading goal" reminder that GoodReads puts out. Basically, at the eve of January, you're encouraged to set a number of books you want to have read by the end of that new year. GoodReads then calculates how many books you would need to read per day/week/month to reach your goal. It's a really cool way to get people motivated to read more, except to me it was a realization that I was, not only 2 books behind schedule, but also that I had only read 1 out of the 20 books I wanted to read this year. So, what's wrong with that? Last year I had the ambition of a scholar set to read a book a week, now I was telling myself it would be great if I could get through a book a month, and then some. Depressing.

Something had to change, because being dumbed down by a smartphone is not okay (at least not if you're trying to pose as an anti-mainstream, ridiculing-sheep-tendencies type hipster). So I switched off my smartphone and wiped the dust off this old thing:



Of course while looking for it, I had to go through a box full of novels, Débuts Speak-French-Now CD's and workbooks, strums and teach-yourself books that came with my now-dusty guitar, hardened paint brushes and barely-used acrylics, yellowing canvases with half-finished paintings, and some of my old writing journals. Fantastic! As if I needed more reinforcements to the fact that I was now a pro at wasting time, here was a box of potentials that I never made the time to explore. Is that it? Of course not, I then came here to write about my human experiment, only to realize that I have a lot, I mean A LOT, of articles and stories accumulating dust and sorrow in my Drafts box. 

Of course, it wouldn't be fair to say that technology is all a waste of time but a noticeable trend of modern-day time is this dependency on technology, that often turns into a crippling addiction. If you're out with a group of friends for a meal, it is natural to find a smartphone, face-up, in front of each one of them. I used to stop, mid-conversation, if I noticed that the person I was talking to was looking at their phone. At first this was just out of politeness (to make sure the person wasn't missing out on any of the interesting details I had to offer about my day), but eventually it became an act of annoyance. Here you were trying to connect (pun-intended) with another human being, face-to-face, while they were more interested in a message/post (that would still be there after you left, by the way). What's even funnier is that these same people would be insanely upset when you don't instantly respond to their texts. Anyways, needless to say, I soon became one of these not-very-pleasant people. Naturally, this has affected the quality of most real-time social interactions (surprise, surprise). You go out to take selfies and pictures of whatever you're doing, then you spend some time tweeting about the book/movie/show/conversation you're supposed to be reading/watching/having, then you go home and tell the world, again, about how entertaining your life is, before you engage in a few pseudo-intellectual conversations. You then go to sleep, only to rise the next morning and do it all over again. The best part of it all is that, no one really cares. Like will the world reaaaaally stop if you don't tweet/snap/instagram/share-every-waking-detail-of-your-day?(hilarious, but also so true it's sad). I doubt it, and those who do really care are usually people you can meet/talk to off social media sites anyways.

Point-being, this is a blog post about my intention to detox from my smart phone addiction. Maybe I'll post a weekly article about my journey back to the stone age, and maybe I'll actually realize the true point of this experiment and I won't post anything but finished stories/articles from my sad little Drafts box. Either ways, here's to conquering technology instead of letting it conquer you. (Wow, I feel like I've already realized my inner guru, so if all else fails, at least I have that.)


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