It was a sweltering Cape Town night when a giant mosquito, I’m sure the species is rare, decided to end my idea of a peaceful night. ‘Bzzzzzzz’, it buzzed in my ear like a vacuum cleaner exhaust. Ugh. I sat up. I swatted my ear and rolled over. ‘Bzzzzzzzzzz’; it started again, louder this time. I will find you and I will kill you, I told it. I reached over to turn on my bedside light. As I did this, in one deadly movement, I swiped (the irony…) my sleeping iPhone off its bed of books. The phone cartwheeled through the air and landed face down like a fat boy in a belly flop competition on my bedroom parkade floor. Smash.
The end had come. The following morning I gingerly picked up my iPhone. “Please, please work,” I begged it. I tried to open an app; access denied. A grey bar flickered across the screen; it reminded me of the ultimately fatal combination of my parent’s box TV set and a thunderstorm. I tried to make a phone call – no success; no response. Smartphone down.
I swore at my phone. I prayed over it. I gave it a 20 minute time out. And yet, still, nothing. Life without my phone – I was going to become an amputee. Something drastic must be done, I emailed my faithful friend at iBerry Repairs, he fixed my screen the last time it broke. (My best friend and I were playing a violent game of Nose Poke and the iPhone leapt out of my hand and shattered on the floor, yes there is a track record here).
“Yo, it’s me. Again. My phone isn’t working. Can you fix it?”
“Fran (insert smiley face emoji). I’ll look into it but you will have to go without a phone for 4 days.”
“4 days?! 4…Wait…did you just say 4 days.”
“Yeah…”
I took a breath so deep a yogi instructor on the foothills of the Himalaya’s would be proud. Fran, I said to myself, “you can do this.”
Hi, my name is Fran and I’m addicted to my Smartphone.
They say smartphones are the new smoking. They may be right.
I work in a digital agency. Everyone I work with raves about technical advances. I get it, I mean 4D is cool and everything. It’s just… there is a negative spin-off to all these so-called advances and I like to be aware of it. Here’s what I don’t like about my Smartphone:
It makes me lose my focus
When I get in the zone; I’m in the zone. Until a thousand notifications flood my inbox, the plague aka Whatsapp groups pings with memes every 2 minutes and some outsourced call centre in India calls me to tell me I’ve won an iPad.
I like to do my job well. In order to do my job well, I need to focus. I don’t like a piece of metal making that difficult.
Inability to have quality conversations
One of my favourite things in the world is conversation (why didn’t Maria sing about that in Sound of Music, I ask you?) One genuine and intriguing conversation and #daymade.
I like people. I like opinions. I like to make the person sitting across from me feel like a million Rand. Texting can ruin quality conversations. It breaks beautiful moments of reflection and connection with something far less worthwhile.
I’m losing the ability to think
I won times table and spelling competitions at school. Now, I can barely minus 63 from 93 on a bill. With Smartphones so many things are automated and I find my first instinct is to reach for my phone instead of using my brain. Need to remember important dates – there’s an app for that. Need to get to a destination – there’s an app for that.
I read less
I used to think it was my life goal to read every book on the planet. Now, if I make to the end of a blog post I’m proud of myself.
Reading random shared articles online is not a substitute for taking in something rich, complex, worn smooth with hours of editing, a classic passed down from generation to generation.
Convenience kills appreciation
I used to drive 4 hours, over dirt roads, once a year to go shopping for new clothes. The amount of care I took when I selected the outfits was excruciating (especially for anyone shopping with me).
I don’t want to trade the real, hard, quality things in life for an instantaneous, mediocre hit. I don’t want to wake up and find I’ve wasted chunks of my life with a digital infatuation. I don’t want to lose the things I like about me because of spin-off bad habits.