Nowadays, it is often considered rude if you don’t respond to a message upon seeing it. Whether it be a text, a Snapchat, or an email; once opened, we tend to hastily tap out a reply and press send within a few minutes of receiving it. What once was novelty is now the norm, and in a turn of the tables, receiving a postcard or letter has become the amusing custom.
But if we think back to previous generations’ days of writing letters, or organising landline phone-calls, it seems odd and a bit alarming that today we insist on being so instant. When I was younger, I wanted a smartphone so badly, but now that I have had one for so many years, I realise how much I don’t want to be reliant on it. To think there was a time when I didn’t have my phone charging next to me as I slept, woke to the sound of an alarm clock and got out of bed without scrolling through Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, YouTube and all the rest of it seems absurd. One of my New Year’s resolutions was to reduce the screen time on my phone, which, ironically, I had an app to help me with. If I could swap out my iPhone camera for an actual camera, my notes app for a journal or notepad, allot myself an hour or two at a certain time to get back to all my messages rather than responding at every beck and call, how would it affect my life? I decided to do the Switch Off Saturdays challenge to find out.
On Friday night at 11:30pm I left my phone turned off downstairs and went to bed. I kept a journal to keep track of my thoughts, frustrations, and insights throughout the day. My first issue was that I didn’t have an alarm clock, but I woke up naturally at around 9.30am. I think. I couldn’t tell, because I forgot to put my watch beside my bed, which was actually really disorientating. Once I had ascertained that it was, indeed, morning, and I hadn’t slept in until past noon, I could relax back in bed, but I soon got really bored. I realised just how much time I wasted in the mornings with my religious habit of staying in bed at least thirty minutes after waking up and scrolling through social media. With nothing to scroll through, I resorted to getting out of bed. This is when I encountered my second phone-related frustration of the day. Looking back at my still snoozing boyfriend, cuddled up with my dog dozing in the duvet, I instinctively reached for my phone to snap a picture. On remembering my personal vow to leave it switched off for the day, however, I resolved instead to spend extra care and focus on committing every detail to memory, and ‘enjoying the moment’, as it were.
Overall, the Switch Off Saturdays challenge was a real eye opener to how dependent I am on my phone, and has since made me think about every time I pick up my phone, and whether it’s necessary, or if I’m just killing time. Lockdown has not made it any easier to resist the instant nature of our modern-day society, but I would recommend anyone who aspires to be less dependent on social media and their phone to give the Switch Off Saturdays challenge a go.
