10 hours without my iPhone!!
The musings of someone who vehemently denies she is addicted to her phone!
I held a bag of takeout in my left hand while balancing my car keys and phone with my right. I was voice-texting a friend as I climbed into the car. As I completed the text, my phone screen went blank. I knew then that the phone was frozen or something glitchy had happened. Knowing that a simple hard reset would fix the phone, I tossed it into my bag and drove home.
Walking into the kitchen, I plugged my phone into the charger and continued with my evening. But as I returned to it before bedtime, I realized it was still a black screen. I tried to do a hard reset multiple times, but the instrument refused to cooperate.
While I had stayed relatively calm for the last two hours, a low-grade panic started inside me. I knew people were texting me- I could see the texts on my Apple watch. Sure, I could respond to them from Mac, but I did not want to be glued to my desk.
I decided I needed to plug the phone into my Mac to try restoring my phone. But it was thirty minutes of futility searching for a USB C cable. My in-home tech guru ( our 19-year-old son) was away at college, my husband was out of town on a business trip, and my 15-year-old had no patience for my mini-meltdown. So, with no USB C cable around, no way to do a hard reset, and now I probably could not fix this instrument at 10 pm, I buried my sorrows watching TV till 11 pm.
I told myself I would plug the phone into the charger, say a prayer over it, and trust that it would work in the morning. I also pulled out my fancy alarm clock and had my daughter set my morning alarm (I know you are judging me for that - this is a fancy clock that wakes us up to the sound of waves & natural sunlight). I also thanked the Lord that I did not have an early morning workout today because I would have been so stressed with the lack of an alarm that I would not have slept all night!
Well, deciding that God was supernaturally keeping me from my phone, I turned it in by 11:30 pm, praying it would work in the morning. At 6 am, the silly phone's alarm goes off because, as you would know, the phone was working but still frozen! I couldn't turn off the alarm, only silence it!
By now, I was freaking out! The first step of the day was to try a hard reset yet again, and it still did not work! I was losing hope by then. I had a sinking feeling, I needed to restore this phone, and I was unsure if I even had a backup.
I could hear my son and my husband in my head, asking me why I had not taken a backup regularly. Who would have thought a phone could freeze for so many hours? After all, these mini-computers that cost a small fortune need to work efficiently!
But while all this mental drama was going on, another part of my brain kept telling me, hey; you have zero distractions now! I had to admit that it was nice not to have multiple texts, reminders, or just the option to scroll. In the last six months, I had removed all social media apps from my phone, so I knew that social media was not the problem. But I still listened to NPR on the app. I loved my podcasts and listening to With God Daily by Skye Jethani on the app. I also use Spotify extensively & I order groceries on my Walmart app.
So, what would I do without my daily intake of news, devotionals, and music? How would I check grocery order status or Christmas shopping orders? I suppose I would have to start the morning with silence. So, I did.
But let me make a disclaimer here: I am usually quiet in the morning. I like to be left alone, but I have a schedule, and I abhor intrusions into my schedule. This broken phone was an intrusion I needed to fix. I could live with the silence as long as I knew I could pick up the phone when needed. So, I was annoyed by this silence, knowing I might have to spend a few hours fixing this phone and getting it sorted out. It felt unfamiliar, and the world's chatter went away. It was not normal. I hated it.
News is good, devotionals are good, and music is good, but perhaps I had become too dependent on them. I recall a year back when I realized I had left my phone on the dining table when we went to church. I panicked when I could not find it in my bag, but we were already halfway there, so it made no sense to return. So, I survived half a Sunday without my phone!
You might be reading this and thinking that anyone can survive a day without looking at their phone. Yes, if said phone is in your bag or car or perhaps you have a lot of self-control. However, I seem to be on this journey of wanting my phone and knowing it's not always good for me.
I have managed to go through vacations without being dependent on my phone. I hate using Google maps when we are on holiday. I much prefer just walking and asking for directions. I took nearly 100 pictures on our last summer trip but only posted about five. My children don't like me posting photos, and besides, why does everyone need to know where I am every day? Whatever happened to adventure and not sharing every tiny detail of our lives?
Why was it so hard to function without my phone for 14 hours? Was I addicted to my phone? I am usually ruthless about not using my phone on the weekends. I typically leave it far away from me or switch it off. If I do pick it up, it's for music because we no longer have a stereo system or a radio. But I realized this morning that I am more attached to it than I realized. Even if I told myself I did not use it much and depended more on it than I realized.
With a frozen phone, I could spend time on my Advent readings quietly without feeling the need to take a picture, post, or tweet! I could not read texts until after 10 am when the phone was fixed. And on some level, it felt freeing. No one could reach me except via email, and I would not reply unless I were sitting at my desk. And if I did not use iCal, I would not have been able to see my calendar for the day. Thankfully I could still take meetings online, but it felt strangely freeing not to be tethered to a device. The freedom I was not sure I wanted.
I know many books and materials have already been written on the addictive nature of our phones, and I agree with them. They are addictive whether we want to admit it or not. In this scenario, I only really had a problem for 14 hours. But even in that limited time, I could sense my frustration for not being to access weather, food, schedules, etc. Like most of my generation, I did not grow up with these devices!
But life has changed in the last decade, and if I am not connected to hundreds of my friends via text, email, and social media, I feel lonely. My own company is not good enough for me. Even if it was good, I needed constant connectivity with the online world! I love all my Twitter friends and enjoy what they say, but what if I did not stay connected to them during the week? Would they forget me? Would I still be relevant if I was not saying something profound or sharing some wise nugget I just read or heard?
I have heard of some folk who live without a phone, and while news channels, magazines, etc., speak about them, I have never imagined what life could be like since the day I got my first mobile phone. I enjoy the connectivity. Even if the connectivity is not always good, some people in my life need to remain in my past, but sadly, being connected means sometimes the past catches up with your present.
But I did get my phone fixed by 10 am, thanks to the help of a Genius from the Apple store. The Genius also encouraged me to turn the phone off once every week so it would not freeze like it did this time. Good advice. I plan to take it! I even left the phone in the kitchen for the next half of the day, only streaming music from my laptop. I usually read in the carpool line, but sometimes I watch videos on YouTube or catch up on the news. Today, I tossed my bag in the backseat far away from me and enjoyed a fiction book.
I needed the lesson today. I needed to be reminded that despite all my efforts, I still was hooked onto my phone. No matter how much we try to stay detached from our technology and devices, they have a weird way of creeping into our life & making us very dependent on them. So, I plan to use the regular alarm tonight and maybe the phone as a backup in case the silly clock does not ring. I sure hope it won't freeze again or cause me problems in the morning, but in the meantime, I hope this can be a source of encouragement to someone in denial like me!
I would love to hear your stories, experiences, or thoughts if something similar happened to you! So please share in the comments, and I hope everyone gets a chance to disconnect and get comfortable with the silence in your lives now and then.