I've noticed over the past few years the increased usage of my iPhone and other mobile devices like my iPad. This doesn't only involve myself, but also with my family, boyfriend, and friends. Just recently, my boyfriend got an iPhone 6, upgrading from a cell phone that he's had since... I don't know, freshman year in high school. Anyways, whenever my family goes out to eat no one talks to each other. We are more interested in what's going on inside our phones rather than engaging in stimulating conversation. To me, it's a pretty sad thing to be seen doing in public. What's the point? We can just stay at home and be doing the same thing.
So, I've decided to ditch my iPhone and iPad for a day to see if I really could do it. Possible things that could happen: nervous ticks, patting my pockets as if I feel a vibrate from a text message coming in, phantom ring, or finding some sort of peace within myself?
J
uly 26, 2015 is when I started this grueling challenge.
10AM: Woke up right on time for work. I usually set an alarm on my phone, but I didn't even need to do that, which was nice.
11:30AM: Arrived to work and started my shift. I guess it was a good thing that I started this challenge on a day that I worked, otherwise I'd probably pacing around my room talking to myself.
3PM: Took my break with a few of my coworkers. As we were all sitting in the break room I noticed that the first thing that everyone did was go to their locker and grab their phone. They sat down and no one said a word to each other for 15 minutes.
5PM: Clocked out of work. Usually, I call my mom when I get out of work to see if she had any plans or wanted to go run errands. This was actually hard for me to do because I like to grab food on the way home if she didn't make plans, so this time I just headed straight home.
5:25PM: Score! My mom made dinner reservations at one of my favorite restaurants and my whole family is going.
6PM: We arrive to dinner in downtown San Diego at
Roy's and get sat down immediately. The place is quite fancy, where they match the napkin with what color bottoms you are wearing. After sitting there for about 10 minutes looking over the menu I was ready to order. I look up from my menu and all of my family members were locked into their phones, swiping up, down, left, right. Did we not come here to enjoy some dinner and everyone's company? While I was ready to order once the waitress comes by, no one else is. Why? Because they were all busy on their phones.
6:15PM: We finally order! Those 15 minutes were torture for me as I was starving! While waiting for our food, I noticed that once again my family grabs their phones again and stare into their phones. I looked around the restaurant and saw none of the other parties were on their phones. I started the conversation with my family about having their phones out during dinner and explained to them that it looks sad. My mom offended by the comment says that she doesn't do that all the time, meanwhile with her phone still in her hand. My sister is still more interested in her phone and claims that she has to constantly be on her phone because of work. My stepdad actually agrees with me and decides to put his phone away.
6:30PM: Food arrives and guess what my mom and sister HAVE to do? Take a picture of everything we ordered to post on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, whatever. This is probably one of my biggest pet peeves, it's when people have to take a picture of their food before they start eating. Uh, I like my food hot and in my belly, not getting cold and soggy, thank you.
7:30PM: We arrive home and wanted to rest a little bit before I hit the gym. It was nice to just sit and relax on my bed, almost serene.
8PM: My boyfriend arrives to my house and we're off to the gym. (I don't really need to call him to come over, he kind of just shows up at my front door.)
9PM: Arrive back home and start winding down. I look back on the day and think about what sort of things I discovered while doing this challenge.
- It wasn't hard to leave my phone at home the entire day. I had enough stuff going on that I didn't even think about it.
- I would like to have my phone for safety reasons. I walk to the gym at night and would like to have it with me as a peace of mind.
- My family probably won't change their phone habits when it comes to dinner and I really can't do anything about it. They're gonna do whatever they want to do, my mom likes to take pictures of everything that we do so she can show her family that's still back home in the Philippines who are on Facebook. So I guess I could understand.
- It's hard to get a hold of people when you don't have access to internet or have phone. What do I have to do, carrier pigeon?
- Lastly, it's nice to disconnect once in awhile, it made me more observant of my surroundings and take a moment to stop and look around.
