![]() ![]() She called, to ask if I got the photo she sent. Strangely, even my wife was out of touch. I could almost taste the ramen noodles.īut as the day wore on, I noticed something. Nostalgia flooded through me like I was 25 again. Cowed, I reverted to the traditional blank, upwards stare. One woman was watching a show on one phone and texting on another. It had been years since I’d been on the subway without a smart device. The next day, I walked back into the world. I was left stressed and exhausted and wondering if this was the dumbest idea of all time. This phone knew what it was doing: it was playing 4D chess with my brain. Cornered, I moved content on to a micro sd card, using an external card reader, then moved that card into the phone.Īll of this took four hours. To fly a 10-minute podcast on to the phone, Bluetooth wanted 25 minutes. Then my “dumb” phone failed to mount on my clever laptop, which meant loading music and podcasts became another hurdle to clear. As an experience, it was not unlike like having your two-year-old kid spit up medicine that he must have but will not swallow. It took an excruciating grind of trial and error just to get my contacts over and on to the Nokia. One reviewer said: “3G speed, forget even the most basic web surfing.”įive days and $85 later I was up and running … and then my excitement was stopped cold, with a stern smack back to 2003. So I checked out the Nokia 3310, a recent refresh of the classic candy bar phone, complete with T9 texting and Snake! ![]() The answer was yes, for $10 a month and a $25 sim card. I called my carrier and asked if there was a way I could put my number on two devices. ![]() But what if I could have a smartphone for when it was really needed but used a low-tech phone for less-essential tasks and times? Could that work? In today’s workplace, unless you’re Christopher Walken, you need a smart device.įine. I’m a freelance producer, so if I’m out in the field and miss some key correspondence, an excuse of “well, you see, my phone usage, it became a bit much” would merely be an efficient way to make sure I am never hired again. That felt good too but it didn’t work either: I kept on bouncing between my apps, checking the damned New York Post.Ĭould I just chuck the damn thing in the ocean? Or just leave it at home? Alas, that really is the stuff of fantasy. It felt really good but it didn’t last long. In the midst of the all-consuming, politics-driven death spiral that is the US today, I shut down all notifications. And maybe knees that tweet.Īnd so I began looking for balance. Maybe future humans will have legs that ring. I have found myself wondering if this is a matter of evolution. More troubling is a sporadic buzzing I feel in my leg, which feels like a phone ringing, when the phone isn’t actually in my pocket. I’m with my kids and I’m still touching the phone. I’m crossing the street, I’ll stop and look at the phone and have no idea what’s going on. Where’s the phone? Is it charged? Should I charge it now, or later? At work or at home, notifications buzz me like low-flying planes. A bulbous chunk of my brain, sucked up by phonethink. The reach for the phone had become involuntary. Of course it should have been obvious long ago, but on that revelatory night, I realised I had lost control. All it takes is a slim distraction and my thumb turns turbo. Baseball stats, flight status, email check, text, random article, who knows what. My usage is heavy, best described as a zigzag, across apps. ![]() When they made it really fast and put it on a phone, it was pretty much game over. “Is this what we’ll do for the rest of our lives?” “Is this how it all ends?” I wondered out loud. ![]()
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