Saturday, August 20, 2022

Can You Break Up with Your Phone?

Last week I discussed the fact that many people are now addicted to their smartphones. I have a vivid memory of getting my first smartphone about 12 years ago. Well, the phone was a BlackBerry, so it wasn’t all that smart compared to today’s iPhones and Samsungs. But it was a whole lot fancier than the good ol’ flip phones I had been using during the previous decades. When it was explained to me that I could receive and send emails on my new kinda-smart phone, at any time of day regardless of whether I was in the office or not, I exclaimed, “This is the greatest thing ever!”
Then, no more than a week later, after receiving some emails that demanded a prompt reply — even though I was in bed at night, or in the bathroom, or taking a walk during lunchtime — I exclaimed, “This is the worst thing ever!”

It’s been all downhill since then, as my phones have been getting smarter and smarter, and I’ve been getting dumber and dumber. Like countless folks these days, I have become addicted to my smartphone. But unlike countless folks these days, at least I recognize this fact and admit it.

Last week I mentioned that I recently read an interesting book titled How to Break Up with Your Phone, by Catherine Price. She describes the devices this way: “Smartphones engage in disruptive behaviors that have traditionally been performed only by extremely annoying people.”

Price lays out a 30-day plan to break free from all the bad habits we’ve developed with smartphones. I found it to be a very interesting book, although it was ironic that I purchased her book as a Kindle download and read it on my phone. Yes, that’s right: I read about how addictive smartphones are by constantly staring at my smartphone.

In many ways, Price’s book was not surprising. It chronicled how people are on their phones all day long and feel severe anxiety if separated from their phones for even a few minutes. What was very eye-opening was the description of how tech firms, especially social media companies, purposely make their products disruptive and distracting. As Price notes: “Focus isn’t profitable. Distraction is.” Turns out I wasn’t far off-base when I joked that Facebook was invented by Satan. 
People who are addicted to smartphones are slowly re-wiring their brains, and not in a good way. Price explains, “Spending hours a day on our phones has negative effects on our attention spans, memories, creativity, and stress levels.” 

One of the suggestions in the book is to regularly avoid all internet-connected screens for a 24-hour period. Price calls this a “Digital Sabbath,” which made me laugh because I have a friend in Israel named Alan who faithfully observes the Jewish Sabbath. From sunset on Friday until sunset on Saturday, Alan and his family disconnect from all electronics. I mentioned this book to him and he replied, “The break from technology for one full day is something I don’t think I could live without anymore.”

I need to use my smartphone for work and to keep in touch with my family. I can’t “break up” with it completely, but going forward I think we should just be friends. I’m going to try not to look at my phone in the middle of conversations with people, a rude behavior known as “phubbing,” which is a contraction for “phone snubbing.”

Catherine Price also advises not to use a smartphone while eating a meal or using the bathroom. Hmm, I can probably stop looking at my phone at dinner, but it will be difficult to give up one of my favorite parts of the day: the morning throne news round-up. 

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