Get rid of screens.
That’s it. At this time of the millennium, I am pretty sure it would be the hardest decision to take.
A week back, I realized how much depended on and distracted I was with my phone. I was sitting down, reading something and the next second something pops up in my phone. I take it up only to find a stupid meme in a really-not-so-useful whats app group which I don’t want to quit simply because I feel like it might offend someone.
The last few weeks were my least productive. I wrote zero new codes. Learned nothing new. And I kept wondering what ate my time up.
Finally, figured out it was my phone and my laptop. So, obviously, I thought of getting rid of it. This is what I did then,
- Made a list of the useful services that I use. (Let’s call the number of items in the list x )
- Made a list of useful services that I will miss if I stopped using it. (Let’s call this y )
- the worth of my smartphone = x-y
- Posted a question in quora
- I contemplated.
I should say that the question in quora, ( Thinking of getting rid of my smartphone, what do you think? ) was pretty useful. Made me think of things from a lot of perspectives.
On the 18th of April 2015, two days before this post, I hard reset my phone. Kept it aside and borrowed a friend’s old phone. It had a resistive touch. All I could do was call. Exactly what I wanted.
Even if people said that it was impossible to live without a smartphone, looks like I’m gonna prove them wrong.
Some of the things they say against it are the following, and this is how I actually look at those points.
- “You won’t be able to read books or podcasts in your phone” – I always prefer books which I can hold in my hands. But I do sometimes read some pdf. But, the amount of distraction in my life just because me reading books in my phone at times, is totally not worth it.
- “What of your friends? How will you chat with them, without what’s app or messenger?” – That’s one of the first reason why I am doing this. I don’t want that 5 hour long chats to know about someone. If he/she is my friend, then I would love to call them up or talk to them in person. If you really think that some of my so-called friends might not keep in touch and move away, then, let them. It’s always good to have 10 true friends than having a hundred time-wasting-good-for-nothing ‘friends’ if you can call them that.
- “To do lists, Calculations, Keeping track of expenses.” – God gave you a brain, dude. Just use it. My experience? Despite having 138 IQ, which was even surprising for me, I can’t remember a 6 digit number! not even a five digit. Not even my second f***king phone number. I thought I was dumb. In Fact, these devices make you dumber and dumber.
- “What if you got lost? How will you survive without a google map?” Quite simple, ask around. Most people are helpful. Trust me on this, there is a huge world just 4 inches up from the screen. A huge, vibrant, full of people, experience filled, world. Something that our screens and headphones don’t let us see. See, experience, enjoy…. The so-called world holds a lot of things for you. All you need to do is raise your head up, just 4 inches.
Oh and for my laptop, its really hard for me to throw away my Ma’at. Because I am developer and Its just not easy. Although, as the first step to my screen-free life, I formatted my Hard Disk, Got rid of Windows and installed Linux Mint. Much better for a developer. Less entertainment, more learnable stuff.
For the last two days, life was fun, really distraction free… I say you try it. Enjoy life. It’s fun.
