I hate my phone. But, I need it.

It was early June, and I was in the bathroom. I was staying at a Best Western Hotel just casually going through my nightly routine of getting ready for bed, jamming out to my favorite Spotify playlist, as I brushed my teeth to the beat of whatever summer pop song happened to be on. As the next song popped on, the volume seemed to double in those three seconds and the loudness quickly became overwhelming as it reverberated off the shower wall in the small, single person bathroom. I quickly grabbed my device to hush it to a more moderate volume as I continued to drying my hair. As I aimlessly placed the phone back on the granite ledge, I watched as the phone decided to dance between one half wanting to stay on the ledge and the other half not wanting to stay put. The greater half weighed the phone down more though and the phone was pulled over the ledge, crashing on the toilet lid, trash, then floor on its fall down. I was hoping what happened didn’t happen. But as I retrieved my phone, cracked screen replaced my previously flawless screen. A tragic story told, known, and repeated all too well and often by so many others.

It wasn’t as bad a fracture as I had seen on other phones, and I felt no real need to replace it. I was fearful of replacing it and losing all my notes, contacts, pictures, all the things I had invested so much time and energy into creating. But after several weeks, my dad insisted I get it replaced. After taking it in, the dealers promised everything would be transferred and nothing would be lost. Happily cherishing the new, unobstructed screen, I opened my notes app when I got home to find nothing. There were no notes. Everything I had previously remembered creating and storing was gone. The dozens of notes consisting of random thoughts, ideas, writings, lists, important remembrances, inspirations, some notes years in the taking, now disappeared. Not there. I was crushed.

How had I become so reliant on such a small thing? I became very philosophical as I questioned the purpose of a productive and creativelife that could so easily, like my phone, be taken away any instant and forgotten. It was so easy for things to be deleted, erased, destroyed. Looking back, I realize I overreacted. In that moment though, I blatantly realized and became disgusted by how much I relayed on this material object. I had become dependent on man-made technology to protect my writings, creativities, and remembrances.

I know I’m not the only one with this problem. We can just look around any public place and see people texting on their phones, teens Instagramming next to each other, and adults all updating the weather or sports. So many of us depend and live on their phones.

I didn’t think I had a problem, but I do. This technological reliance isolates each of us and barricades us in our own worlds. Time to play, relax, and create on technology is fine, but not at the expense of creating a cohesive, lively, and expressive local world right beside us.