I feel like people can be put into three categories regarding smartphones: category one loves their smartphone and could never see themselves without it; category two kind of hates their smartphone but knows that they need it in order to get by; and category three has never been interested in smartphones, opting instead to carry a Nokia that is only capable of sending texts and playing Snake. I have, thus far, considered myself a strong member of category one, a proud lover of the life of connectivity that my iPhone provides.
Recently, I started to seriously think about getting rid of my iPhone and replacing it with an old flip phone. Of course, this decision was likely influenced by the amount of 00’s nostalgia Instagram accounts I follow and the abundance of pictures of Paris Hilton’s iconic Motorola Razr that they post, but I also realised there is something undeniably soothing about the near past, where the extent of mobile connectivity was simply being able to make a phone call.
In wanting to force myself out of category one and into category three, I started to consider the pros and cons of this plan. Pros include: less internet time, less notifications about everything that goes on in the world, and more time for myself. Cons focused on the ease at which I can contact people being taken away – I enjoy the novel idea of having to send one big text or have a phone call to receive gossip á la Mean Girls as much as the next person, but in reality I knew that this would inconvenience others and, more importantly, I would miss my group chats way too much. In doing this, I realised that what I like and what I dislike about my phone can be separated into two incredibly concise categories: I like being able to talk to the people I care about, and I dislike being constantly aware of what is going on in the world. There is a constant barrage of notifications from apps such as news sites and twitter which is incredibly hard to ignore. These push notifications are rarely the sign of good news and can often lead to feelings of anxiety and overwhelm. This is no recent phenomenon – there has been a strong focus on news induced anxiety since the 2016 American presidential election – yet the current smorgasbord of Brexit, a pandemic, the murders of innocent black people and Trump’s potential re-election means that anxiety-inducing news is always just around the corner.
In this era of 24/7 news, there is something quite calming about the thought of a flip phone that would charge you three thousand pounds every time you accidentally clicked on the internet icon. Being aware of worldy goings-on is a privilege, and we must care about the topics that make it into the news, but sometimes it is just too much for one person to handle, and what better way to avoid it than to simply deny yourself the access? With the constant barrage of notifications covering a wide array of tense topics and the endless stream of strangers’ opinions regarding those topics on social media sites such as Twitter, we have created a world where it is hard to escape from the noise.
This has been a year of hardship and intensity, and it is clear that my adoration for the flip phone era is a symptom of seeing the past through rose-tinted glasses. I am scared of the present and apprehensive about the future whilst feeling constantly overwhelmed. As it turns out, I don’t actually want a flip phone or to time-travel to the era in which they were popular, I just want a world where things are less scary. A simple life, if you will.
This piece was originally written for Boyfriend Magazine.
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