This might sound like a crazy impossible idea, but I just went two and a half weeks with a phone that does nothing but call and text. No games, no Internet, I'm surprised it was even in colour! All because my blackberry died after only one year. Anyone who owns a blackberry knows that you can do everything on it, so it was tough going from all to nothing in the space of one day. but to my amazement and actual enjoyment, being virtually without a phone for a couple of weeks was the most cleansing and relaxing experience.
I didn't have the social pressure of being "on call" 24/7, I didn't have to be on twitter, Facebook, blackberry messenger, or emails. I started reading a book on the bus (something I haven't done in years), i talked to my friends without being divided between them and the virtual world of the phone. And i was able to people watch like never before.
I was standing at the train station with 3 friends, one had an iPhone and two have Samsung galaxies. I stood there as the three formed a semi circle in front of me, and simultaneously they all reached for their phones and started mindlessly poking away, then all together they would put them in their pockets, and you could almost time it to the second as they all once again about 30 seconds later took their phones out of their pockets and once again started poking away. I could do nothing but smile as this went on in silence in front of me. :)
Its like we have this subconscious connections to our phones, this need to be constantly reassured that someone is following us, messaging us, tweeting us and we lose sight of the people around us who are face to face. If there was a test done on the dopamine levels in our brain when we received a text message from one person, compared to the levels when that same person said the exact same thing to out face, I can be fairly sure that we would find higher levels in the short term from the text message than we would from face to face, but i think we would also find that even though face to face contact would result in lower levels, over a longer period of time the levels would be higher than normal.
It is this desire to get quick hits of happiness rather than slow release doses that makes mobile phones so addictive. In this ever quickening world, where speeds have to get faster or they get left behind, we lose the joy and small details of just going slow, enjoying a moment rather than trying to get somewhere. Walking rather than running to the train station when you know there is only a 5 min wait between trains. Taking the bus that means you have to walk for 10 mins rather than the one which gets you there faster.
Taking the back streets rather than sitting on the freeway. In the end it might take you longer to get somewhere or you might have to wait a while, but this need for speed world that we are living in isn't spinning any faster, at least not fast enough that you will ever tell in your life time.
I will come back to my point about mobile phones. If you own a phone which connects you to almost any social media site, if you are constantly checking, even without realising it, try for a day going without a phone, or at least turn it off and put it in your bag. Leave it there. try it for a week even two weeks, and you will feel after that week or two that when you do go back to your phone, maybe you wont want it so much. At least not as much as you thought you would.
If you think you could try this, and you want to give it a shot, please let me know how you get on and if this is true or if I'm just a fluke of nature :p
Happy slowing down and disconnecting...
Em
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