There is something in my life with which I have a love/hate relationship. Well, a few things actually, but this blog is going to focus on something small. This is what I wrote on March 3, 2011: "There's this little, inanimate object that has all kinds of power over us, yet we treat it badly. We throw it, drop it, lose it, then curse it when it no longer does what we want it to do. It will give you directions, tell you where you should eat, lets you listen to its music, plays games with you, and lets you talk to it. It cunningly teaches you to love it, to hold it, to constantly be with you, to get its little clingy fingers in every nook of your life. If only it weren't so indifferent. I have become chattel to its winning ways, constantly checking its little green blinking light for news! That little green light that sends that adrenaline inducing buzz that promises 'A message! An email! A phone call! Someone is thinking of me! Oooh, Delta is having a fare sale!'"
It's practically science fiction. You touch it and voila! The universe is in your hands! "Where do you want to eat, do you want to play Angry Birds oh look you haven't seen the movie Rio touch here to see Rio you haven't played Words with Friends for two hours you better refresh your gmail oh, look! An update! I better check my Facebook what if you missed something on Facebook remember the tranny that you took a picture of send that picture now who cares if your boss is nearby why haven't you heard from so and so it seems weird that you haven't gotten a text from so and so in 34 minutes oh wow it's 32 degrees outside is it gonna rain tomorrow you better check the weather oohhh I know you want thai food right now you better get thai."
I was tired of being chattel to its capricious whims so I made a decision to go 24 hours technology free. I wrapped up some loose ends, told the people that I speak with on a daily basis that I was "leaving the matrix," and at midnight Saturday turned my phone off. That also included my computer, so no email, phone, text, or Facebook. Surprisingly, before I physically shut the phone down I had a moment of anxiety, like "what if I miss something? Will people forget me if I don't communicate with them for 24 hours?" This, my friends, is the definition of addiction: "The state of being enslaved to a habit or practice or to something that psychologically or physically habit-forming." I have a dear friend, who no lie, people, went to the doctor for numbness in her thumb, only to be prescribed hand therapy because she had a case of "Blackberry Thumb." It was time to walk away.
So that's what I did. Literally. I put on my Adidas, yoga pants, and baseball cap, put my hair in pigtails and hit the pavement. 21,000 steps worth of pavement, which with my little stride equals about 10 miles. I did listen to my ipod (I figured that could be the exception since I couldn't actually communicate with it). I didn't once think about turning on my phone (which I did have with me, just in case...this is New York City). I took the trail that runs along the Hudson River on the west side of Manhattan. In my neighborhood in upper Washington Heights, there were a few bikers, a few rollerbladers, but not a lot of people. As I traveled further south, I started noticing families having picnics, a father and young son fishing together, a younger gentleman and his grandfather having a small barbeque, young lovers canoodling in the grass. I saw a young woman making a sash from dandelions, families pushing babies in strollers. The Hudson, being whipped about by the wind, seemed to be flowing in two directions, both north and south, and the warmth of the sun was being held in check by the wind, nature working symbiotically. Inhaling, the brackish water, the earth wet with black soil, the carpets of green moss growing on the rocks were practically palpable. I wanted to stop and run my fingers through the water, to see if it felt smooth like it does in the mountains.
In fact, I was so nicely not distracted by my phone that I felt instantaneously unburdened. And I had set the rules, not the other way around. In fact, I put off having a phone for a few years because I didn't want people to be able to get a hold of me all the time. It wasn't until my ex-husband convinced me to get one because I was commuting 90 minutes each way through mountainous passes.
Now I let my electronic pet solve all my problems. I can even blame it for things.
I thought yesterday of being a kid, before the ubiquitousness of phones: I came home when it got dark, if I had to call my parents I did it from a pay phone. I used my problem solving skills. Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I am not a parent. You so often hear how the world is so changed from when we were kids, and I posit that yes, it is technologically different, but how is it intrinsically different? Why is not safe to let your kids ride their bikes around the neighborhoods? Are the people driving no longer capable of not hitting children on bikes? Why do parents no longer let kids go door to door for say, Girl Scout Cookies? Is there a kidnapper lurking behind every door? What about trick-or-treating? Ringing doorbells has been replaced by trunk-or-treats, where instead of walking around the neighborhood, parents park their cars in a parking lot, generally a church parking lot (talk about circling the wagons) and the kids walk from car to car. Are we raising a bunch of wimps?! Have we made the kids so completely dependent on instruction from the adults in their lives via cell phone that they are incapable of figuring things out on their own?
I will also list the contrary argument in all fairness: My friends who have a teenager said that they put off giving their daughter a cellphone for the longest time, but once all of her friends got phones, she was left out of the group because she was unable to communicate with them via text message. So, she got the phone, and now she's in the loop with her friends. This I can understand.
I have to say this: the people who invented these phones and the companies that charge us for them have tapped into something which at it's core is essentially human. They have provided us with these overpriced objects (my phone was $400!!!) that promise us many things: "We will bring you closer to your family, you can be in touch with your loved ones at all times, we can even save your life if you fall in a well or get kidnapped. We will be here for you." They have exploited our need to feel special, if only for the duration of blinking indicator light.
After my 24 hours, I turned my phone back on. Nothing to report. No blinking indicator light. But the addiction is not ended. I find myself, even now, looking at my phone every few minutes to see if that little green light is winking at me.
Sorry, gotta go! Got a text!
