A break from my cell phone

I decided to take most of the day off from my cell phone on Saturday because I wanted to see how if felt to not have it. I didn’t get a cell phone until 2004 so I knew I could manage it. First off I went to work without my phone which was a weird feeling. It was also somewhat scary because I’m a few peoples emergency contact info, so feeling disconnected was weird. I changed my voice mail so that if anyone needed to get in tough with me to call me at work. After I got home I used the rest of my day by working on my car and cleaning and getting things done around the house. It was amazing how much more productive I was by not being interrupted by text messaging. Later that evening I went to some friends house and still left my phone at home. It was actually a nice feeling not being distracted by texts and wanting to look at it while I was over there. I felt like I was more engaged with what was going on at all times. I almost forgot I had a phone, and my stress level was lower because I wasn’t constantly bothered by technology. The next day however was funny seeing the missed calls and people getting frustrated with me that I was not responding to them. We as society have become so reliant on needing to be connected to one another at all times that its now socially not acceptable to not get back to someone in a timely manner, which a decade and a half ago was not a big issue. This was a fun experiment.