A Flip Phone Is Calling My Name
Life glued to a smart phone is too much sometimes.
Sometimes I love my iPhone. Other times I feel that I would rather abandon it completely. Constant connection. Constant access. Everything at your finger tips at every moment. It’s a gift and a curse.
I remember being a kid in a time where smart phones had not yet taken over. I was born in 1997, 10 years before the first iPhone was released. When I wanted to look something up, I walked over to my family’s home computer. Google wasn’t at our fingertips like it is today.
Before getting my first phone the only connection I had to my friends, outside of being in person, was through email. Email chains were going around non stop. Most of us didn’t have phones at the time, which forced us to use a different means of communication.
My first phone was an old samsung with one of those qwerty keyboards that flipped down. All I could really use it for was calling and texting, which at the time was incredible. Going from using a computer to having a device with you at all times was quite the experience.
I didn’t get an iphone till around 9th grade. Instagram had come out around that time, but it was much different than it is today. No addicting short from video content. It was solely content from the people that you followed. You could even run out of new content when you caught up with all of the posts.
Today is much different. Our attention is being hijacked at a much higher rate than it was back then. No social media platform would ever dare to stop showing you posts. They want your constant attention. And it’s hard to not give these platforms your attention unless you strictly discipline yourself. Getting on your phone to check a text turns into “let me open instagram for a second”. 1 hour later you realize you’ve been scrolling reels for hours and wonder where all of the time went. It’s a vicious cycle.
It’s only in hindsight that we recognize the beauty of a more simple time in a world where the devices in our pocket didn’t steal our time at the rates they do today.
Many people are starting to question if they really want to be constantly consumed by this high tech world. Lots of us can feel deep down in our soul that we should spend less time on our devices.
A few months ago I deleted all social media from my phone for a week. I felt the best I’d felt in a long time. So much clarity. A feeling of ease. Less stimulation. Then I eventually redownloaded all of my social apps. I pretty quickly got back to an absurdly high level of screen time.
It should be simple. If I don’t want my smart phone to keep taking over my life why don’t I just stop using it? The reality is that many of us are phone addicts. It’s very hard to limit usage when it’s accessible 24/7. It’s like telling an addict to just have a little. That is very difficult when our brains crave the dopamine that comes from spending time on our smart phones.
The flip phone is the best solution to this problem. If you just delete the apps off your smart phone you can just as easily change your mind tomorrow and redownload them. The more barriers that you add to switching back, the more likely it is that you stay the course.
I’m ready to make the switch.