I’ve been going through a series of bad luck recently. I dropped my iPhone 5s in a creek a few weeks ago, but I was in no state of panic since I still had my back up iPad mini that I could use. At least I could still message people, go on Instagram and Facebook when I had Wifi. But while I was in the process of ordering a new phone I was travelling with my team for tennis and may or may not have accidentally sat on my iPad mini. The poor thing was cracked and unusable. So there I was, without a phone or an iPad for the rest of the day. I know, first world problems, right?

Whatever would I do? Without any form of technology aside from my laptop (which is too large to carry around anyway), I was stuck, alone, in a big scary world that I hadn’t faced head-on for years. Without the comfort of my phone to go back to, there was no escape from awkward situations, no little object to distract me in class, and absolutely no way of connecting with other human beings.

Instead of breaking down, (which naturally, was very hard not to do) I decided to take this as an experiment to see how long I could last without using technology. So when I got home, I threw my laptop under my bed and put myself to the test. And then, suddenly, at 10pm at night I didn’t know what to do. There was no music to play, nobody to text, no Netflix to watch, it was suddenly very quiet in my dorm room. So I did something that I hadn’t done for a very long time. I took a shower. Just kidding, (although I did take a shower) I opened up a book that I was half way through about one year ago and started to read it again.

It was a strange feeling, really, being apart from my phone and my notifications. Every now and then, I would get a “ding” in the back of my head, almost like a reminder saying “check your phone” in case I had any messages. Each time I felt this pang, my hands would automatically jerk to try and find my little device and check it. Each time, I would have to remind myself that there was nothing to check.

It scared me how much I realised that we all depend on our phones. These little touch-screen high-definition tablets almost control the human race. Without the distraction of my own phone or iPad in class, I started to notice how frequently every student would be looking down at their screens. The frustrated professor would look around the classroom helplessly, almost accepting the fact that she would never have the students’ full attention. I started to wonder, when did this obsession start? When did we all suddenly become so engrossed in our little devices that we would trade actual human interaction for sending messages and emojis over text? I wonder how many times I’ve smiled at my phone instead of at another human being.

At lunch that day, there was no way to coordinate with my friends about what time we would be eating. So I had to rely on the usual schedules of the girls and hope that they were all eating lunch at the usual time. So at 11.15, I walked into the cafeteria hoping for the best. Everyone was there as usual, and I sat down to join the girls.

I started to notice that a majority of our conversations centered around things on our phones.
“Do you like this picture of me?”
“Look what this guy just texted me!”
and “How funny is this meme?”
are all topics that came up at the lunch table. I even found myself suggesting things like, “you should have seen this thing on Twitter last night… Let me show you,” only to realise that I didn’t have a phone to show anybody anything. Despite feeling excluded from the main topics of conversation, I was also unable to Google any answers to our major debates. Basically, I was a non-asset to our lunch table.

I found myself noticing some things that I would usually never think twice about. When my two friends started Facetiming another person at lunch, I wondered, why do we even eat lunch together if all we do is sit on our phones? I started to think twice, and ponder about life (Something very dangerous and I highly do not recommend).

I began to panic when my professor said, “I want you to record your next interview. It’ll be easy, just use voice memos on your phone or download an app.”
“But sir, I don’t have a phone,” would have made me look like an ancient primate.
I imagined myself bringing in my larger-than-life laptop into my interview and cringed at the extra awkwardness it would cause. So I decided that at about that time, it was about time to get my iPad fixed.

So after 24 hours with no iMessages, I received my iPad back to find 108 messages left sitting on my device. So much had I missed from those darn group messages.

I lasted one day with no technology, and now I’m passing on this challenge to you. How long can you last?