I remember standing in my waitress uniform in the middle of an Applebee’s restaurant in 2011, arguing with my coworker about getting a smartphone.
“I refuse,” I said. “I don’t want to get addicted to my phone.”
I was in college and already spending hours on my laptop browsing Facebook between classes, and I didn’t want that kind of accessibility every minute of my life.
A year later, I finally gave in and bought my first Samsung smartphone.
In the decade since then, my smartphone has become an extension of myself, and I bet you can relate.
It’s my stopwatch, diary, calendar and music player. I use it to make shopping lists, read newspapers and listen to audiobooks.
I recently wrote about a new anti-technology movement that has seen people ditch their smartphones and switch to so-called dumb phones, or cell phones that only do the basics.
And I thought it seemed pretty liberating, so I decided to jump on the trend and give it a try.
I bought a $50 Alcatel AT&T flip phone on Amazon with a $30 prepaid plan.
This was the most attractive because it was affordable and also had good reviews on the most basic features.
The phone included texting and calling, but no games, not even the iconic Snake.
I could take pictures with it, but of course they were nothing like the professional-looking images my smartphone can capture.
Two days before I was supposed to switch to my dumb phone, the unimaginable happened: my wallet was stolen and only by the grace of my smartphone was I able to receive the notification in time that someone was charging my credit cards, allowing me to immediately freeze all my accounts.
I bought a $50 Alcatel AT&T flip phone from Amazon with a $30 prepaid plan. This was the most appealing because it was inexpensive and also had good reviews on the most basic features.
Well, the experience certainly didn’t calm my apprehension about giving up my constant internet access and I began to wonder if I had made a mistake by going back in time.
But I was immediately overcome with a feeling of nostalgia when it arrived in the mail.
“Those were the days,” I thought as I plugged in the SIM card I’d purchased that gave me unlimited calls and texts.
I remembered my first flip phone that I received back in the day when it cost 10 cents to send or receive a text message and calls to carriers outside of Verizon were only free after 9 p.m.
And God forbid you accidentally open a browser. That was usually followed by a panicked rush to close it before a significant charge appeared on your parents’ phone bill.
The phone had a much larger keyboard than I remembered, until I realized it was probably aimed at older generations who don’t want to use updated technology.
I was instantly transported back to simpler times, but it didn’t take long for me to panic.
Unable to browse social media before bed or play Sudoku on my phone, I couldn’t sleep before midnight and often woke up at 2am, nervous that I’d missed an important notification.
If you’re like me, conversations with friends and family are kept up through text, WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook Messenger and I was worried that I wouldn’t respond right away and miss out on photos or videos of my nephews and events the girls in my book club were planning.
I sat with my laptop in the evenings before bed with WhatsApp and my social media platforms popping up in front of me and getting frustrated that during the day it would take 20 minutes of my valuable one-hour lunch break to answer four text messages.
Embarrassment quickly set in as I rode the bus and then the subway to work, worried that people would judge me as I slowly typed responses into what seemed like a long-dead relic.
By the end of the first week, I noticed something I hadn’t expected or anticipated: switching to a dumb phone was damaging my relationships. I felt excluded from all group chats and found myself talking to my family and friends far less than I usually do.
As I texted my husband, “What do you want for dinner?” I realized why my friends and I developed a kind of shorthand language during my teenage years.
It was because it took me forever to write the simplest sentences! Changing “ya vuelvo” to “ya vuelvo” and even short words like “para” to “4” and “tú” to “u” made a lot more sense now.
However, by day four I was surprised at how quickly I had adapted to my new normal and began to really enjoy it.
I began to accept that I wouldn’t see some messages right away, and after experiencing a brief bout of stress from not having constant access to my emails, I began to enjoy being able to completely disconnect from work when I got home.
The quiet moments gave me more time to do chores around the house that I would normally neglect, like spending the hour after I got home weeding the yard or hanging the mirror I had promised my husband I would put up when I bought him…six months ago.
While all of this may not seem surprising, by the end of the first week I noticed something I hadn’t expected or anticipated: switching to a dumb phone was damaging my relationships.
I felt left out of all group chats and found myself talking to my family and friends a lot less than I usually do.
But it wasn’t until my partner asked me if he could use my smartphone again because he felt like we weren’t as connected when we were texting through my dumb phone, that I was forced to conclude that the problem was me.
My responses had become slower and shorter than they normally would be, making the conversation stilted and awkward.
Once I realized this, I couldn’t enjoy even the smallest aspects of my new freedom from modern technology and began counting down the days until it would all be over.
Disconnecting from social media lost its appeal as I went to the beach and camping and was forced to upload photos to my laptop just to post them, creating an unnecessary and time-consuming step.
I stopped posting in general, which made me feel even more disconnected from my loved ones, but it was the incessant problem with texting that left me fatigued and wanting to throw this brick through the nearest window.
After this two-week test, my advice to anyone thinking of taking up the dumb phone challenge is also to not do it unless the rest of the world is joining you.
As I was nearing the end of my self-imposed two-week sentence, my friend asked if I could ask her for some advice.
My first reaction was, “Can I call you back soon to chat?” but his response, “Text is better. I work late,” left me tired, knowing it would take me a minimum of 15 minutes to give him the response he deserved.
In the later days of smartphone use, I had to deal with the annoyance that I still couldn’t listen to my music in the car and resorted to the radio, which had more commercials than I remembered it having in the days before Spotify.
Meeting a friend for dinner became a chore without the help of Google Maps or a printer to use Map Quest like I used to, and I missed being part of group chats with family and friends that just didn’t work with this phone.
You might be wondering if giving up my smartphone for two weeks had any advantages. It’s a question I’m still trying to answer.
Aside from having a phone battery that lasts more than a day, this was one trip I could have done without.
And after this two-week test, my advice to anyone thinking about taking up the dumb phone challenge is to not do it unless the rest of the world is joining you.
