I broke my phone last week, and it was probably the most inconvenient thing to deal with. I know some people do “phone cleanses,” and that its so great to curb your dependency on technology—but I, however, did not do this willingly. However, I learned exactly what I do use my phone for (and no, it’s not exclusively social media).
1)DIRECTIONS: I am terrible at getting anywhere without google maps. I do not have an innate sense of direction like some people, and no one keeps actual maps in their car anymore. This meant I couldn’t go anywhere without a passenger, or farther than a couple of blocks.
2)TIME: I’m not a watch person, so not being able to check your phone for the time is pretty frustrating. It also made me paranoid because I never knew if I was running late, and had to just hope for the best.
3)ALARMS: Alarm clocks are unnecessary when you can just set five alarms on your phone with aggressive/motivational lines to get you up in the morning. When you don’t have a phone, however, you have to get pretty creative. I tried finding online alarm clocks (did not work well), and resorted to having my friends come in and check if I was awake or not.
While I definitely missed being in constant contact with friends and family, the hardest part were the simplest features. Maybe the “cleanse” was helpful, but I can’t say I’ll be doing it again any time soon. Fingers crossed I don’t drop my phone again!