4 things I learned going 4 weeks without any phone

Most people spend huge chunks of their day on their phones. In July 2016, one study found that 81% of adults owned a smartphone, spending an average of 1 hour and 39 minutes on it per day. A 2017 study puts that number at 4 hours and 57 minutes per day. That’s a lot of time

My history with phones has been pretty varied. For the first year or so of high school, I had a flip phone. I had a smartphone for the next year or so. Then I went back to a sliding phone for a year and a half, until it broke. I went a month without any phone, and now I am using a smartphone again.

During my month without any phone, I learned a few things that I think are worth noting:

1. It’s possible
I am still alive. I really did just fine without a phone. Whatever I needed to do online I just did on a laptop or desktop computer. When I finally did check my text messages and voicemail box after getting a phone, I only had a few texts and voicemails, none of which were very important. My other family members told me anything important I needed to know. 

There were only two times during the month that I needed a phone and didn’t have one. Both times I just borrowed someone else’s without any problems. Well, except...

2. I missed the GPS
If I needed directions, I would download them onto my laptop from Google Maps. This was not optimal. I got lost twice doing it, which caused me to be late to Frisbee practice both times. I also had to navigate a few times using just my intuition and the sun. Those expeditions actually turned out surprisingly well, but I would hope that they remain the exception and not the rule. 

Standalone GPS systems are available, but they are not nearly as convenient as simply saying “Hey Siri/Google, route me to the Chick-fil-a on Broadway Street”.

3. I still wasted time
With the statistics I mentioned above, you might have gotten the impression that I had an extra 5 hours a day. Uh...No. I still found lots of ways to waste time. Whether it was browsing on a laptop, sleeping in, or just getting distracted, I often found myself dawdling.

Too often we try to blame the time we waste on the phone, when we are still the people choosing to waste it. In reality...

4. Phones aren’t the problem
The problem is not that we own chunk of hardware with a screen. The problem is that we allow it to tell us what to do. We think that, because a notification appears, we are obligated to respond. That’s simply false. We are not obligated to give our time to anything or anyone except God and our family (and our job, in some ways).

The way we choose to spend our time is just that - our choice. We have to decide how we will spend our time. The problem isn’t the phone, It’s us. It’s our lack of self-control. Our idolatry. We think we HAVE to look at that notification. No, we have to work on growing patience.

Phone are tools. Nothing more. It’s time we treat them as such, and stop thinking of them as our masters.

And by the way, you can turn off notifications for any app in your settings.