I truly love my iPhone. One small device that can keep me up to date with my emails, text messages, Facebook timeline, tweets, sports scores, movie times, bank accounts, weather forecasts, books I’m reading, shopping lists, notes taken at a meeting, yelp reviews, my Netflix cue, and the list goes on. There truly is an app for everything and it’s literally at my finger tips.
I’ve found that the phone has helped me become more patient… sort of. I’m in line at the DMV, great, I’ll just catch up on Facebook, balance my checkbook, find a new restaurant for Friday night to check out, and see if going to the beach on Saturday will work weather-wise. Suddenly I don’t mind the fact that I’ve waited for two hours to update my drivers license and can’t believe my number is already being called. Or, I’m at the doctor’s office, the dentist, post office, elevator ride, long hallway, short hallway, living room couch, breakfast table, in bed . . . wait a minute. When am I not on the phone? When was the last time I actually used it to call someone and have a conversation?
I, like many metropolitan men, spend more time on my phone than doing anything else and in my own opinion, that’s not ideal. I can’t even seem to be in a conversation with someone without pulling out my phone to show a picture, google a fact pertaining to the conversation, or check text messages. What happened to me? Ten years ago, I despised people who would pull out their blackberries and check their emails. Or people who would leave their phone on the table at the restaurant while we dined together. I’m ten times worse than what they ever were and I’m not alone. Am I really being smart with my iPhone? Or have I lost all sense of intellect and now my smart phone is running my life?
I came to this conclusion last year with help from my wife whose brow furrowed every time she came into a room and I would be clicking off my phone guiltily, or sometimes not even clicking it off, explaining that I was ‘almost done.’ Lucky for me, my wife is not as addicted to her phone as I am even though, we both have agreed she is on it quite a bit as well. Is spending so much time on the phone truly necessary?
We chose one week and decided to do a phone fast just to see if we could make it a week without using the phone other than to make calls, or answer texts. The beginning of the week was scary and strange. Here, the item I thought enhanced my productivity truly began to show me that it completely stunted my productivity. Sure I could check my bank account and pay a bill or two on my phone. However, that took roughly three minutes of my time whereas the time I spent on Facebook liking things, reading articles friends posted, etc. took an additional forty-five minutes after doing my banking. When dusting off the ol’ laptop and doing the banking there, I also realized we had several other projects on our desk that hadn’t been touched in nearly two months and they were ALL done within the hour. Those were projects we just did not feel we had time for. I even read an entire book during that week. Hmm…
I also realized that maybe it wasn’t so terrible not to be current on the Facebook timeline. I checked it at work one morning as I was dying to know if I missed something big. Nope. Republican friends still hating Obama. Democrat friends still hating Republicans. Tons of witty e-cards, people protesting animal rights, and pictures people randomly took with Instagram. I’m not really missing out here. Sure there was one tidbit here or there that was new information I cared about, but generally, I realized that even if I wasn’t on Facebook every single day, my life could move forward, and possibly more successfully than not.
My third lesson, not being buried in my phone every moment, I was suddenly aware of how terrible my social skills were becoming. How much it annoyed me to enter an elevator with another guy who couldn’t even make eye contact and say a simple ‘hello’ as he was glued to his screen much like I had been a week before. We entertained some friends and I resisted picking up my phone to show them something about six different times, yet we were able to finish the conversation. If we wondered something and I didn’t google it, we came up with our own theories or left it a rhetorical question; much like our ancestors of the nineteen-seventies and eighties. Did you know if I talk to someone on the phone instead of texting them, the conversation takes roughly three minutes which usually took me about a half hour texting back and forth waiting for a text, typing out my reply, etc? Also, walking outside, there are these amazing things called trees, and flowers. Our sky is blue! Children still play games outside, I can exercise without music. My iPhone screen offers me a lot, but life offers me more.
The week ended and some changes were made to when we use our phones and how. Waiting rooms, of course. Hallways and elevators? Nope. At home… only at certain times. Has life been better since? Yes. Do I still love my phone? Just as much. In fact, it’s sitting on my desk beside my keyboard in it’s perfect black shininess just waiting for me to use it. Will I use it once I finish this article? Nope. I’ve got some other things to do. I don’t need to depend on a phone to run my life. I am in control of my life with the help of my phone.
metropolitanmen 