Editor’s Letter: “A week without a smartphone”

[dropcap]‘L[/dropcap]ife moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.’ Yeah, good old Ferris Bueller taught me that, and I thought I was pretty good at appreciating my world around me. However, since the decline in my smartphone’s health finally reached its culmination and it departed my company for a better place (the repair centre), I finally realised that there is a whole world out there which I have been ignoring.

My life relied on my phone. I’m the type of person to have 100 things going on at once, so I am constantly responding to emails, whilst Facebooking, Whatsapping, paying my latest bills and taking photos of cats. However, in using my phone as a mini-laptop, bank account and all-around life saver, I constantly resorted to it in place of actual conversation. So often I would use my phone when talking to other people, when pre-drinks grew a bit dull or to stop myself falling asleep in lectures.

But now, here I am. Day seven. My phone and I have officially parted company for the foreseeable future, and it’s a whole new world.

My experience so far has not been easy; I have returned to my brick phone, like if Justin got back with Britney in ‘02. But a brick phone is not the same, it is not the Britney to my JT.

In place of Google Maps, I’ve had to try my hand at cartography and begin hand drawing maps and directions. I couldn’t resort to my phone in awkward or boring situations, forcing me to not mindlessly scroll through my newsfeed, but to talk to people or appreciate things around me. On those long and arduous bus rides I actually started getting work done.

The hardest thing was the fact I had to start using an actual alarm clock!

The adjustment has been hard, but I’ve learnt a lot about myself, as well as about society now. As I was phoneless, I’ve had to observe others constantly using theirs instead. The world we live in is filled by the hashtag warriors and avid Snapchatters. Those who would rather take a quick picture of art in a gallery and move on, rather than stand, observe and appreciate it.

However, if we keep burying ourselves in our phones we miss the opportunity to talk to the people we always see but never speak to. Or actually appreciate world around us.

So maybe it’s time to put down your phone and stop to look around once in a while.
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Photo: flickr/janitors