To read part one of this article, click here
A funny thing happened on the way to me hating not having my cell phone for a week: I didn’t.
When I decided to voluntarily turn off my phone last Friday, I figured all the convenience I had to give up would make my life miserable. It turns out I was right and wrong; the week was full of inconvenience (sometimes from places I never would have thought), but, after some adjusting, my life was far from miserable.
That is not to say my life was all sunshine and rainbows. As I mentioned in my last column, there were a lot of little things I use my phone for that forced me to scramble for temporary solutions, like a clock, a calendar and finding something to fill the space in my pocket.
However, the thing I missed the most by far was my phone’s alarm clock. I don’t have a clock radio or any other kind of alarm system, and have used my phone to wake me up for years. Since I have never been remotely a “morning person,” finding something to fill the void was vitally important.
I didn’t volunteer to miss class, after all.
I found the solution easily enough; there are several free alarm clock applications available for Macs, so I downloaded one to my Macbook Pro and set it for 9 a.m. Monday morning. After I woke up at 10:45 a.m. under my own power, I discovered the fatal flaw in the program: if you allow your computer to go to sleep, the alarm doesn’t work.
That night, I changed the computer settings so it would remain on all night. Apart from the setting being harmful to the computer’s display if done for extended periods of time, it also turned my computer into a neon sign, bathing my room in more light than my lamp would all night long. But hey, at least I wasn’t late for class.
It was in class the benefits of not having my phone started to come into focus. Without the temptation of texting people and screwing around on the Internet dividing my attention, I was able to more completely focus on class lectures. I felt like studying. What I did was more beneficial because I was able to remember more of the things I did in class, and it connected with readings in my textbooks. This gave me more confidence on tests, two of which I did quite well on during the week.
Another thing I noticed as the week went on was I really started to enjoy the silence. Before, if I ever had any downtime, I would pull out my headphones and start listening to music or one of the dozens of podcasts I download every week. Now that I no longer had that option, I started to enjoy just walking around campus, listening to the rain and birds, looking at squirrels scurry around trees, and actually talking to people as they passed by.
I realized while I was less connected with the rest of the world without a phone, I was more connected with the people that were around me every day. That’s something that gets lost in this new global community; you may be able to talk to someone in Japan whenever you want, but you also have to look people in the face in your town, and they should not be ignored.
It was something I wanted to remember as I moved on. Now I knew that just because you have the option of being plugged in all the time, it is not a requirement. I hope in the future I am able to keep my phone with me only when I must. In situations where I don’t need distractions, like in class or at work, it will remain safely off.
I turned my phone back on this afternoon. The screen was flooded with 25 text messages and voicemails from my friends throughout the week. I responded to a few texts, and called one person back.
Then I turned my phone right back off.