5 things you learn when you leave your cellphone at home
I recently went an entire work day without my smartphone.
I know.
I charged my electronic leash at a time when it’s not usually charged, in a place it doesn’t usually charge and waltzed out the door without it.
I didn’t discover this error until I was too close to work to go back and get it. It was a long day but I learned a few things along the way.
(1) I told myself it would be OK because I work in a cubicle at a desktop computer. I figured, no phone, no problem, I’m still connected to the lifeblood of the Internet.
But a desktop computer just isn’t as good a smartphone, especially when it comes to social media. In the small breaks from actually getting work done, you can update your status and Tweet all you want. But searching and following others’ contributions is not as quick and easy as it is when you have your own computer in your pocket.
(2) You still get phantom vibrations even when you know your phone is sitting safely on your nightstand two towns over.
And you constantly reach for it, to text, to check Twitter, to look up if that was Liv Tyler or Milla Jovovich in “Dazed and Confused.” Critical stuff, clearly.
Ricard Linklater’s ‘Dazed and Confused’ (1993), perhaps the best movie about the high school experience ever made. pic.twitter.com/CMiCD3ED9p
— Wrong Reel (@WrongReel) August 27, 2015
Technology that didn’t exist 10 years ago now feels essential to every day life. (It was Milla Jovovich, by the way.)
(3) My phone comes with a step-counter. It’s completely unreliable and I hardly ever look at it.
But if I’m going to walk the four flights up to my desk — because I avoid the Venus-Fly Trap of an elevator in my building whenever possible — I want credit for it.
And it certainly is not counting anything if it’s sitting at home.
(4) My world, first thing in the morning, is quiet. My shift starts earlier than almost all of my co-workers and I need noise in the nearly-empty office.
I fill those hours while working with podcasts or music. Without my phone, I had to endure in silence.
It was miserable.
(5) And then at the end of the day, I hadn’t missed much at all.
I got home and rushed upstairs to retrieve my lifeline. There were two texts and a notification from Twitter.
Although I survived, I’ve not made that mistake again.
This story was originally published September 8, 2015 at 12:11 AM with the headline "5 things you learn when you leave your cellphone at home."