Have you ever taken a moment to just look at your phone? Have a little moment with it without immediately giving in to the urge to turn it on? And when you did lock eyes, have you ever wondered what that thing that you use to communicate with the world is trying to tell you?
It wasn’t easy but I resisted the urge and as I looked at my shiny phone the following realisations came to me:
That slick Smartphone, even when turned completely off, communicates a lot. Even when its battery has died the messages it’s sending are alive.
Messages like:
- You need me
- Grab me first thing you do when you wake up, a lot has happened the past 8 hours and it’s time to catch up with life
- Whatever will show up here on this screen is better than what is happening in your life
- I am your way to connect with people, your only way, the best way, the fastest way
- If you didn’t have me there would be no way you would know about this new project or that local news, or that missing child, or that celebrity giving birth, or your cousin getting engaged or that insight on how to be a gentle parent
- You can’t leave your house without me, it will make you feel sad. You will pannick and will try to go get it anyway. Even if you are already almost at your destination
- If you delete a lot of apps from me, you are not fully using me to my capacity
- Life with me is a more efficient life
- It is better to record your child doing that funny thing than it is to just watch it and experience it and enjoy it. If you happen to be too late, then that is a shame. You could’ve shared that video in a whatsapp-group or even better on your story or feed
- If you don’t use me you will miss out on a lot of things that are happening in the world, and that is not a good thing
- Even if you decide to put me away for a while, eventually you will get back to me. Those decisions are not forever
- Going to the toilet with me is better than without me
Is it true what your phone is telling you? Do you believe him?
This endless list is the reason why I called this project ‘the smartphone detox’ and not the ‘social media detox’. It’s because I realized (also after doing my share of social media detoxes with questionable success) that it all starts with the phone. Even before that light lights up. The phone is the portal that connects us with the noise, the overwhelm, overstimulation, distraction and time waste.
And because that’s where the addiction starts, so did I.
When you take a step back from your apps and look at your smartphone screen, what do you see?
Rachida –