My trusty, almost-two-year-old iPhone 5s broke last week. I had prepared for this eventuality many, many times before with the classic dropping of the phone onto concrete sidewalk, and the holding of breath in an anticipatory state of limbo until I painfully opened my eyes to assess the damage. We’ve all experienced it: Schrodinger’s phone. Up until now it had always been fine. A powerful sigh of relief when your phone comes off the ground unscathed. But, like all good things, those days had to pass, and my iPhone met its ultimate demise in a beautiful explosion of shattered glass — mobile confetti... I thought I would be fine. I thought, “I’m a real person, not completely addicted to technology. I, out of all people, know how to interact with the world in a way that doesn’t involve my checking Snapchat every time I lose focus for a few seconds.” And while I won’t say I was wrong, it’s been immensely more difficult than I imagined. I admit it, not having a phone is a bitch.
Suddenly, my laptop is my holy grail. “Oh, Lenovo Windows personal computer, how I mistreated you and underappreciated you.” This clunky piece of machinery is now my only portal to the online world. I have had to replace iMessage with Facebook Messenger. My only friends are people whom I can contact through Facebook. And because I’m an old-fashioned antiquity who takes class notes with pen and paper, I’m not the kind of person who carries her laptop wherever she goes. My backpack is barely big enough for my Moleskine and a Nalgene water bottle. There’s no way this textbook-sized PC is going to be mobile. And then, of course, there isn’t even Wi-Fi everywhere, so how would I get in contact with people in transit?
I’ve become clingy, dependent on my friends for letting me use their phones to get in contact with anyone from my friend visiting for the weekend, to my parents who’d probably enjoy daily updates. If they don’t have the number of the person I need, and I’m not at home, I’m not going to know the homework, or the deadlines, or even the location of the weekend parties. I am out of the loop.
So why has it become this way? Why can’t I function like a regular human being without my Instagram, my Tinder, my Snapchat and most importantly, my contacts? Whatever happened to landlines? Snail mail? Where has the ability to determine a place to meet someone at a specific time, and have them actually be there at that place and at the time gone? So what have I learned? I’ve learned that when your roommate gives you a life-proof case for your phone as a gift, just put it on. Don’t be an aesthetically minded dunce who favors caseless phones. Don’t leave it in your friend's car and forget about it for several weeks until you actually need it, because then it’s too late. Phone cases are like condoms. Sure they’re not necessarily pretty, and they feel like extra baggage, but you don’t want to deal with the life-ruining aftermath when shit hits the fan. No this isn’t an advertisement for Otterbox cases, but this is an advertisement for knowing how to live life without phone, even if for only a few days. I won’t throw myself back to the '80s with a Rolodex contacts binder, but I will maybe write down the important phone numbers in the back of my notebook, just in case.
