The things you can do with phones these days seem essential and we all enjoy them thoroughly. We are never going backwards.
But if you lived about 45 years ago you lived a time when your time was truly your time. Nobody had any way of bothering you unless they physically went to visit you. Even the land lines phones did not have answering machines so people had to catch you at home and you had to pick up. It might be days or even weeks before someone got a hold of you. Today you are making a huge sacrifice by turning off your phone for an hour. People get peeved if you don't text back within minutes. Bosses and customers demand access-ability.
I wish we still had the ability to check out completely.
Am I the only one?
No you are not the only one. I remember 1996 when the company I worked for supplied computers to all of our employees. I used to tell people my dream job was to have a big truck and go around and take all the computers and throw them in the nearest Ocean. I still feel the same.
Before electricity and when electricity was primitive everything centered around community. If you lived in a small town whenever there was something big going on everyone was there!
Instead of thinking about switching the phone off, learn to switch yourself off. If your job, as a lot of jobs do - requires that you have a smartphone that is on 24/7 you need to find a way to distance yourself from it.
It is always going to be there unless you move to the countryside and take up shepherding or something of a similar ilk.
Smartphones are nefarious in a way. Not so much the phone itself but the apps, the code, the way it functions, the reason and logic and programming behind it. It's designed to be something that you don't want to put down - of course it is (not the phone itself but the way that the phone functions, and obviously by phone I don't mean the telephone features, I mean the concept as a whole).
You can get apps and programmes if you are struggling that restrict usage, but I find that kind of ironic and think it's better to learn the skills yourself if you can, although for some people it's like fighting a losing battle.
Change the alert tone for starters. Put the phone in a different location. Maybe get a box for the phone. Put it out of your line of sight. Do other things when you feel at a loose end or needing to distract yourself, like a puzzle book or read or watch a film or just go outside and plant a garden. Engage with the world in a different way. It's like a process of de-evolution. So choose to evolve instead.
I have a iPhone but no traditional social media. But I still think the minor conveniences of a phone outweighs the undeniably terrible negatives of phones on human development and behavior. For me the potential time saved is canceled out by the time wasted on let’s run, which alone has done so much to hurt society to cancel out all the good of phones. But I did learn about the benefits of running on concrete!
As someone whose been in the classroom for over a decade I cant start to tell you the destructive power of social media with kids lives, mental health, educational outcome and physical health. These things are now not even debatable. Ask anyone in my field and they will tell you the same.
Social media is run as a business model to be addictive. Or else they don't make money from ad revenue. Its pointless to the makers of SnapChat/Tiktok/Insta if a kid only tunes in for 5 min a day. They therefore make it addictive. Its really no different than cocaine in many ways. Ask a kid to put away their phone for an hr and see their withdrawal symptoms flare up.
When I tell my students that just a few yrs ago no one in my class had a cell phone and ask them to think of how they spent their time they have no clue. NONE.
I'm 55 I grew up and started my professional career without smart phones. It is much better with smartphones than without, simply for matters of safety and convenance. The idea that any normal person could have satellite navigation in their pocket would be absolutely mind blowing to anyone in 1989. No more maps, never getting lost on a road trip!
In HS it was a huge deal just to have my parents pick me up after track meets. They didn't know when we were going to get to the school until we pulled in and I called them from my coaches office, this could be 8pm, could be 10 pm who knows???
If social media is causing you stress then there is a very simple solution to that problem so I don't see how that could be seen as a drawback to having a smartphone. Probably the WORST thing I can think of now is that young people have pictures and video of themselves doing EVERYTHING and its all on line. I wouldn't want my college drunkenness displayed for everyone for the rest of my life, or some video of me saying something horrible or sexist/racist/stupid when I was 19 that goes on to haunt me forever.
The things you can do with phones these days seem essential and we all enjoy them thoroughly. We are never going backwards.
But if you lived about 45 years ago you lived a time when your time was truly your time. Nobody had any way of bothering you unless they physically went to visit you. Even the land lines phones did not have answering machines so people had to catch you at home and you had to pick up. It might be days or even weeks before someone got a hold of you. Today you are making a huge sacrifice by turning off your phone for an hour. People get peeved if you don't text back within minutes. Bosses and customers demand access-ability.
I wish we still had the ability to check out completely.
Am I the only one?
No you are not the only one. I remember 1996 when the company I worked for supplied computers to all of our employees. I used to tell people my dream job was to have a big truck and go around and take all the computers and throw them in the nearest Ocean. I still feel the same.