12 Hours Without My Phone
On Friday, my wife and I agreed that while celebrating our anniversary, we would spend the day without our phones. The purpose was to be fully present with each other, just like we were on our wedding day; I had never been so fully present, as I was on that day.
The experiment ran from 9am-9pm, and we hadn't planned much of our day before starting. I didn't want to have a phone with us at all, not even "in case of emergency," so we left our phones cuddled up together between the pages of a book on my desk. You might think that 12 hours of waking day isn't long to be without your phone, but it was for me. Being connected is part of my business and my life: I am a solopreneur, a very extroverted person, and someone who takes pride in responding quickly to people.
As part of this experience, I kept a notepad with me throughout the day to write down each time I felt a burning need to use my phone. Here are some of them:
Check my dad's location after I realized he wasn't at home (what was he doing? he never goes out this early. Is he okay? Did he go to the hospital without telling us?)
I wanted to log some health things I'm tracking, like the migraine I’d had the day before
Text a friend to wish them a safe flight, prior to their departure
Look up the location of a new restaurant we’d been wanting to try
Take a picture of the rooster that walked up to me while waiting for my waffle
Take a picture of my vegan, gluten free waffle to tell my friends who are also vegan and GF
The challenge begins. While leisurely drinking our coffee and tea on the couch, much of our conversation centered around our anxiety over not having our phones while out and about. I noticed myself looking for and reaching for my phone multiple times. We apologized to our dog for leaving him at home, and set off on our phone-free journey. Things that we did:
Ate vegan, gluten free waffles for breakfast
Read our books
Ate dosas for lunch
Took a nap
Walked to Target to get popcorn (~1.5 miles from home)
Played a board game
Rented a movie to watch at home
Ate dinner at a new Vietnamese restaurant that a friend recommended
After only 12 hours of not having my phone I had a few realizations:
The first several hours were the most uncomfortable. It took several hours before the thought of not having our phone with us lessened...but it did lessen, and felt more comfortable near the end of the day.
I felt more present without my phone. I realize that my phone is like a magnet. It subconsciously pulls me toward it, and out of the present moment (can someone say addicted?). Not having it at all feels very different than having it in the car on Do Not Disturb, which is something I've tried in the past. The easy access, and the ability to rely on it if needed, changes things for me.
I don't know what to do with myself while waiting. Waiting is a normal part of life. Being bored is a normal part of life. But I've learned how to avoid the waiting and the moments of boredom with the help of my phone. Waiting for food to be made, or for my wife to pay for the popcorn at Target, felt so different without a phone. I was forced to just observe my surroundings: look at the raindrops falling outside, and the people hopping over puddles of water. Writing this days later, I can still see those raindrops falling in my memory, but if I had my phone, I don't think I would have noticed or cared. I often fill these mundane, yet beautiful moments, with my phone.
Conversations centered around things that we saw, heard, read in our immediate surroundings. We talked about the rooster that boldly came up to us at breakfast and how beautiful his mane was. We wondered what they were eating, since there were no worms in the artificial grass. We couldn't help but listen to the guy talking loudly about his failed relationships while we waited for our waffles to be made. That led us to a deeper conversation about whether living in the past or future decreases happiness. Most times when we have our phone, we are reacting to something that isn't "there". For example, "look at this cute dog on IG!" or "my mom just texted and asked about our Christmas plans," or "________". It takes us away from being in the moment, conversing about what is here now.
Life felt less "convenient". There were some big inconveniences with not having our phones with us.
I couldn't pay with my Target Red Card and get 5% off (not saving money hits me where it hurts).
We couldn't take pictures or videos of interesting or cool things (my waffle looked so tasty! That rooster was so bold in asking for food!). We were forced to just look at it and watch it. We don’t have pictures to look back on in the future, to help remember how we spent our day, just our memories.
We had to listen to the radio instead of our favorite playlists or podcasts on Spotify.
We took a 15+ min detour trying to find the new dinner restaurant, only having the address and no idea of the exact location on King street (a very long street on Oahu). It felt so old-school to look for addresses on the buildings and figure out if we were heading in the right direction! But it also helped us notice buildings we hadn’t seen before.
I felt less connected to the people who weren’t there. I am someone who likes to share my life with those I care about. I wanted to send pictures of my waffle to friends who are also vegan and GF, and make plans to go with them at a future date. I wanted to send an anniversary selfie to my mom. I wanted to tell our friend that we were watching the movie they highly recommended. I wanted to take a picture of our dinner, to send to my friend who recommended the restaurant.
There was some dread and some relief going back to the phone. As it got closer to 9pm, I felt the pull creeping back in. Like that feeling of when you are ending a vacation and you know you will have hundreds of emails to tend to. I had 25 texts, 27 whatsapp, 2 instagram, 1 missed call, and 2 important emails that waited up to 12 hours to be responded to. It felt good to process through all those messages and reconnect to people I cared about; getting back to “life” as I know it.
We know that we don’t want to live without our phones. There is so much benefit to having a phone! But we also know that we don’t want to live an unconscious, unpresent life. By being connected (via phones), we can often be disconnected from the people who are here with us. Overall, it was a successful experiment and inspires me to do another challenge: One whole day without our phones, from going to bed the night before, to waking up the morning after the no-phone day.
Some things that helped me to get through this 12 hour period:
Not doing it alone. There's something very comforting, knowing that the people who would call me in case of emergency were there with me.
Informing people that I talk/text with daily ahead of time.
Writing down the address of new places that we plan to visit.
Knowing that it is all going to work out fine. We are whole, creative and resourceful humans, and we will figure out the things we need to figure out if a situation arises.
What is the longest you’ve ever gone without your phone on purpose?
