Reading Time: 3 Minutes
Noise. Everywhere, noise.
Notifications, red dots, calls, texts, messages, pictures, chats.
It was all getting to be a bit too much.
I was in need of a digital detox pretty badly, so a few weeks ago I set aside the weekend where I would be without my phone.
This coincided with a planned pub crawl day with some friends and, knowing we were going to get a little silly, and knowing I tend to get creatively inspired when I get a little silly, the only thing I felt I was going to miss about my phone was my ability to jot down any ideas that came to mind.
So I bought myself a little notepad and pen, just like the kind I used to carry around with me everywhere before smartphones were a thing.
For 14 hours my friends and I hopped around the city and, while the day was not without its challenges, I’m here to tell you, that I survived 14 hours OUTSIDE MY HOME in an analog state.
We were starting at a brewery that I had been to before, but not all my friends had, and I arrived first. My mind instantly went back to how things were in high school and University when, if you wanted to meet up with someone, you chose the time and place and just hoped you’d find each other. No texting to advise you were running late, no quick call checking on directions. You made plans and stuck to them.
Now, I do not wear a watch and, after one drink had gone down too quickly, I noted the following thoughts in my notepad:
No idea what time it is – if I’m late, early, if they’re late… the moment is the moment.
I only know that which I already know or can immediately observe.
Broken from the hive.
I’m not going to lie, it felt incredibly freeing to just be in the moment, in my surroundings. Taking in the other people at the brewery, laughing, playing Jenga, eating sandwiches, not beholden to anyone not present with me sending me any kind of communication.
In a perfect contradiction, I also felt extremely limited, confined to know and understand only that which I already knew or could observe. If a random thought or question came to mind, the answer was not readily available to me.
Add to that the fact that my friends had still not yet arrived and thoughts were starting to creep in around what I would do if they still hadn’t arrived by the time I finished my second drink, and it was clear that even just 45 minutes of going analog had made an impact on me.
When they came through the door, the first feeling I had was one of relief, knowing that now, no matter what happened the rest of the day, we had a way to contact the rest of the world, my wife, the venues we planned on hitting up, the random website that could help me remember the name of the song that was currently playing.
Once we all had drinks, I shared with them the journey I was on and their reaction was exactly the type of reaction you can expect from really good friends: pure mockery.
I decided I would lean into it and, all day, whenever I would have reached for my phone, I used my notepad instead.
When they wanted to take a picture of themselves, I told them I had it covered.
When we had to calculate the bill at one of the bars, I was ready.
When we had to set an alarm to make sure we were at a bar for a specific time, I made it happen.
Perhaps the best was, upon arriving at an axe-throwing spot, we had to scan a QR code for a safety waiver.
I proceeded to start to sketch it, saying, “This is how we had to use QR codes in the old days.”
Here’s the thing I noticed above all else: you never really notice how often people look at their phones until you don’t have one.
That instinct and habit, when you see someone checking their phone, for you to do the same, it was honestly a bit of a wake-up for me and in the last few weeks I’ve been consciously trying to use my phone less, monitor my screen time more often and spend more time being present.
At the end of the night we ended up farther away from my place than I anticipated and the other guys were all going in a different direction.
It was cold and windy and I said my goodbyes as we parted ways.
With no ability to order an uber, I had to rely on hailing down a cab, something I haven’t done in probably five years. A forty-minute walk home translates to about a ten-minute ride and not a terribly attractive fare for a cab, and the first question any cabbie asks before you even get in is where you are going, to see if it’s worth it to take you.
The first cab I managed to hail was about to pull away when I told him that, hey, it’s late and it’s cold and I know my fare isn’t a great one but I’d really appreciate if he would take me. He asked if I had cash, so as not to have to deduct from his fare even more by paying merchant fees, and I said I did and he let me in.
The conversation that followed was supportive and respectful, but I did voice my opinion to him that his initial question was exactly why Uber was winning. Taxi cabs provide a service and if the service is unreliable, people will look elsewhere. The code even protects passengers saying the taxi driver can’t discriminate based on destination, but of course you have to get into the car first to be considered a passenger.
He told me the side of the story I’ve read about, how hard it is to make it now as a taxi driver, how the value of the licenses has been reduced to nearly nothing and how he needs to take longer fares to make it worth the price of gas.
It was a good exchange of conversation and I felt for him, and tipped him generously, but ultimately he’s an example of someone trying too hard to still hold onto an analog way of living in an increasingly digital world.
After 14 hours out of my home, I walked through the door and my wife had just started to fall asleep and was very happy to see me.
“I was worried,” she said. “I’m glad you’re home.”
“I’m glad I’m home, too,” I said, ignoring my phone on my bedside table, resisting the urge to open up the group chat to see the jokes my friends had been making about me all day.
I snuggled in for a cuddle, wanting only to continue being in the moment I was in, with the person I was with.