In January 2019, I entered a contest held by VitaminWater to ditch my smartphone for 365 days. I had already been wrestling with the idea of giving up some of the uses of my smartphone. I saw the challenge as an incentive to go out on a limb and choose to be intentional about navigating life without being handcuffed to my phone. After all, who wouldn’t want to lock away their phone for a chance to win $100,000?
VitaminWater selected Elana Mugden, a 30-year old, New York-based author to dumb down her phone, trading in her iPhone for a flip phone. On the fifth day of the challenge, Elana stated that she identified unhealthy habits she had developed with the phone including taking her phone to bed and scrolling away at night and in the morning. Post-trading in her phone, her sleeping habits and human interaction, amongst other things, began to improve. At the conclusion of her 365-day challenge, Elana stated that she would not return to using her iPhone because she “became 100000% more productive over the course of the year.” The phone trade clearly impacted Elana positively and gave her cause to forego her iPhone entirely.
In hindsight, I could have chosen to dumb down my smartphone with or without the incentive. Instead, I kept my smartphone and continued my wrestle. Today, I can identify that keeping my phone and maintaining the way I relate to it has not benefited me. In fact, it has likely stunted a significant amount of my progression. Achieving some of the goals stated in my submission video has become a lengthy undertaking, one that could have been tackled within the same 365-day timeline that Elana endured. For over a year, or possibly longer, I have been in a never-ending cycle of allowing my smart phone to seize my attention. This dilemma affects numerous smartphone users on a daily basis.
In recent years, there has been an ongoing discussion about the power our mobile devices yield. Smartphones are designed to be an all-in-one hub, housing anything and everything we may need to access throughout the day. Our phones prey on our needs to the point that we fail to consider that we may not truly need all the functionality they provide. Furthermore, they permeate our subconscious, marked by our need to touch and interact with them even when they are not calling our attention. In her Today interview, Elana said, “I noticed times throughout the day where I still instinctively reached for the smartphone and it’s not there… and that happens when I’m having conversations with people, when I’m at dinner.” This is a common occurrence amongst smartphone users today, especially those making use of social media.
In 2017, the year of the fidget spinner, an Austrian designer named Klemens Schillinger created a series of products called the Substitute Phone. The series includes five different smartphone-like objects that house stone beads. You can move your fingers across the beads to mimic zooming, swiping, scrolling and more. On his site, Schillinger states, “The object, which some of us describe as a prosthesis, is reduced to nothing but the motions. This calming limitation offers help for smartphone addicts to cope with withdrawal symptoms. The object as a therapeutic approach.” Our connection to our mobile devices affect us in various ways, even down to our compulsive behaviors.
When you give something, you get something in return. In this case, you trade the often-uncontrollable urge to check for new messages for a bit of light that invites you to read a book instead or just focus on your work.
Klemens Schillinger
Additionally, Schillinger designed the Offline Lamp, a lamp that powers on as a result of a smartphone being placed within its base. His description: “Once the smartphone is locked inside the drawer, the light turns on. When you give something, you get something in return. In this case, you trade the often-uncontrollable urge to check for new messages for a bit of light that invites you to read a book instead or just focus on your work. What remains is the simple solution ‘Out of sight, out of mind.’”
This idea of giving to get is key. If we focus on giving up something in order to get something greater in return, maybe we would be more willing to detach from the draw of our devices. Today, we often hear news reports on the effect our smartphones have on our attention. Moreover, we find articles, read books and watch videos detailing how to effectively go about eliminating distractions, quitting social media and ditching your smartphone. From a beverage brand to a product and furniture designer, everyone can pinpoint the extensive problem smartphones create in our daily lives. We have a substantial amount of evidence to confirm that we need a smartphone intervention. Maybe it’s time we embrace the idea that giving up our social media, smartphones and the like will improve our sleep, human interaction, work, productivity and much more. Maybe it’s time to go out on a limb and ditch everything.
Sola's Thoughts 