In Switzerland we didn’t have internet on our phones, but for some reason I carried it around with me everywhere.
It would be easy to reassure myself it’s a manner of comfort. If I needed to I could use it to call for help or what not, except I didn’t even have the number of our friend who was driving us around (which I realized now).
Which made my phone almost useless. Well it could still be used to call an emergency line or what not, but it wouldn’t update my email, I wouldn’t be able to post pictures.
It was just a simple phone.
Yet it felt a bit like a life jacket. And while I could legitimize this by saying I needed it for safety, and to a degree I feel I did, I think there is also something else lurking.
Even while I didn’t need it for it’s uses, it’s totally normal, habit, and safe to carry it around with me.
Imagine how disconnected I would feel without it, or unsafe. And isn’t that a bit strange? It’s just a little box? But when is the last time you have seena pay phone that worked? I rarely even see ones that work, it’s kind of strange, because I remember when there were more. Did they just get sucked up one day? Society has deemed them more or less unnecessary.
So our phones becomes those little lifelines and safety blankets.
I wish I could say that this has inspired me to have days where I walk around without my phone. But it hasn’t. I use it to communicate, to know I can call my parents whenever I want, to play my audiobooks.
I know it’s a safety blanket, that device I can use whenever I don’t want to make eye contact with someone.
I am accepting this semi-crutch, and maybe I can wean myself off it. Do I need it? Meh. Could I live without it? I can say I could. Because I have pretty high faith in myself.
I’m not addicted to it, since I can easily not use it. I use it mostly for communication still, and limit my browsing to my kindle.
But if there was not internet? What would I do? Play a lot of card games, board games, and do some reading.
Which sounds, actually, pretty relaxing.
But then again I’m an oldie at heart. I love talking on the phone, landlines, paper books, and cups of hot coco. Total oldie at heart. And that’s okay with me.