I accidentally left the house the other day without my phone. I realized it not long after pulling out of the driveway, just in time to turn around and go back. I decided to keep driving.
I was with my son, Isaiah, and I said to him, “It’s probably hard for you to relate to this, but there was a time when nobody had a phone when they left the house. Nobody ever had a way to get in touch with someone if they were on the move. Nobody cared, and nobody worried about it. It just wan’t an option.”
He said something to the effect of, “Wow, that was a simpler time, wasn’t it?”
It was. When I left the house as a kid, my parents had no idea where I was. Not really. I was required to tell them where I was going, but they had to trust that I would actually be there. There was no way to get in touch with me. There was no way to track me.
I remember riding my bike to my girlfriend’s house. I enjoyed taking the scenic route on Beaver Valley Road. It was 4 miles each way. It usually took less time to get back than it took to get there. I always lost track of time. Because when I was there, I was just there. I was present. There was no device distracting me. And I certainly wasn’t paying attention to the clock.
Longing For A Life Without My Phone
I often find myself lamenting how we got to this place. Yes, we’re more connected. My adult children use the tech to talk to each other and their significant others across great distances on a daily basis, often sitting on FaceTime for long periods. It’s wonderful for them. That’s a win, in my book.
But I wonder what we’ve lost.
Actually, that’s not true. I don’t wonder at all.
We’ve lost, or willingly given up, a meaningful amount of personal freedom. We are constantly shackled to our devices, and they demand our attention. Friends, family, and work can all encroach on previously unreachable spaces. And we allow it.
As a result, we’ve lost the ability to spend time with our own thoughts. They’re constantly interrupted.
We’ve also lost the feeling of reward that comes from figuring things out on our own, without reaching into our pockets for a device that holds all the knowledge in the universe, ready to answer any question the moment we think to ask.
When I first arrived in Los Angeles, I navigated that city with a Thomas Guide. If you don’t know what that is, it was a thick book of maps, indexed by street, covering every corner of one of the largest and most complex cities in the world. I was new there. I had never lived anywhere close to that size. And I figured it out. I got where I needed to go. There was something that came with that — a real sense of accomplishment, a confidence that I had earned by doing something hard.
A friend of mine, Dan Steward, recently left a comment on LinkedIn about a post I wrote titled Protecting My Thought Process. He said,
“I don’t drive anywhere without using Waze and I do believe that behavior has diminished my own ability to plot and navigate a road trip. Waze is easy, frictionless, deals with unexpected events along the journey, tells me where radar traps are, I don’t have to think much. I didn’t plan this mental skills erosion, it just happened. Doesn’t ChatGPT, et al, risk doing the same thing to our ability to think, but on an incomprehensible scale? Irreversible scale? 🤔 ….I need to think about this.”
Dan feels like he’s lost some of his navigation skills.
I think that’s a metaphor for lots of areas of our lives.
Should We Spend More Time Without Our Phones?
Should we spend more time leaving our phones at home? Not just turning them off or putting them on “do not disturb,” but actually leaving them at home. Intentionally forgetting them. Forcing ourselves to return to a time when life really was simpler, when we weren’t constantly baited into paying attention to something other than what we were doing.
I was more present then. I had to be. There was no device to turn to when I was bored, or when the conversation was uncomfortable, or when I just didn’t want to be where I was. I had to deal with whatever situation I was in, right then and there. If I ignored the person sitting across from me, there were relational consequences. If I were uncomfortable, I had no choice but to sit with that discomfort.
We’ve definitely lost something. Something meaningful. The problem is, I’m not sure I can trust my memory of what that something was. Or what that something might gift me again.
I can’t be sure whether I’m simply romanticizing what I believed to be a simpler time, or whether my memory of life without a phone is even accurate.
It’s just been too long. Those muscles have atrophied.
I need to experience that feeling again. And more often.
Yes, yes, and yes. Do we romanticize those days because we miss them or are we more aware of technology we have today? Perhaps a little of both.
Your essay is a keeper; thought provoking and significant. The irony is without my iPhone on a Thursday morning, I would’ve never read your poignant words.
Thank you, thanks to you boy, for conjuring up what used to be a simpler time.
P.S. Those Thomas Guides were a struggle to keep on one’s lap or read from the drivers seat! 😊
Carin, thank you. The other irony is that I dictacted the first draft of this, entirely, using my phone. That’s probably a post for another day. Thanks for reading!!
Stellar piece, my friend.
When my phone was stolen in Barcelona, I was beside myself. How would I function? More importantly, since the DSLR was at home, how would I take pictures during our remaining two days of vacation?
I wasn’t worried about my info and data on the phone, since I bricked it remotely before the thieves made it around the corner (and those dudes were FAST. Like NFL wide receiver fast.)
It didn’t take long to realize I could take photos with my wife’s phone. But, I was worried about *functioning*.
As it turned out, those two phoneless days in Barcelona were two of the best days ever. I did indeed find freedom.
Jay, I think I’m going to start forgetting my phone more often!