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HetFlex_K 51M
160 posts
9/30/2014 8:26 pm
addicted to phone


Today I did something unintentional, but quite eye-opening. I am not the kind of person you would call addicted to technology; I don’t yearn for the newest gadget, didn’t care for the longest time if my phone did anything more than make calls and send/receive text messages, and even took my sweet ass time getting into digitally downloading movies and music. My ex had to buy me an iPod, otherwise I’d probably still have a ridiculously huge CD collection. I might have once been hooked on Facebook, for a brief period of time, but I am also not prone to getting addicted to things like that either. Social media sites disgust me, and I try to spend as little time on the internet as possible. I don’t despise my computer like I used to, because it can be used for so many other things, but I think you get where I’m coming from. I check my emails, make the occasional post, and then I get off the computer. With my phone it’s all about making calls, sending/receiving text messages, and lately a bit of internet use. I will check things I would normally wait to get to a computer to check, even though the screen was ridiculously small, and difficult to manage. Phone versions of sites are limited, hard to navigate, and never super important to my daily/weekly/monthly existence. I’d check to see what new releases were in RedBox, or look at a picture punkin wanted me to see, that originated in FetLife, but that’s the kind of things I’m talking about. It was almost always stuff that could have waited, that wasn’t really important.

Now I will admit freely that for a time, I got a bit obsessive about having my phone on me, so I could respond to text messages. It wasn’t like a bunch of people were communicating with me, I just felt like I didn’t want to be disconnected or unavailable. I didn’t want to leave the phone sitting somewhere for a few hours, come back, and find I’d been asked an important question or missed an opportunity to soothe a worry or frustration punkin might have been experiencing. To be fair, I wasn’t addicted to getting messages, I was just trying to be “there when needed”. It got so bad though that I recently asked my ex if she thought I might have a bit of OCD, though she assured me it didn’t seem to be the case. So we come to today, when I innocently set my phone down to charge for a while, and promptly got so busy I forgot about it. Several hours went by before I checked to see if there were any messages, and when I was done, I made a decision to not put it in my pocket. I left the phone by the charger and walked away, only coming back to it again another two hours later. It felt simultaneously freeing and unnerving, being without it at all times. I felt like I was missing something, but also felt I wasn’t missing a damn thing. I don’t know that I’ll make it a habit to leave it alone for hours, but I do know one thing after spending the day like this - I was getting a bit too attached to my phone.

I began writing the following last week. Some of the same things are said, but maybe better expressed:

The other day, while riding the bus to my ex-girlfriends place, I sat close to a woman who did not look up from her phone once during the entire trip. Even when I wasn’t actively watching her, I could see her out of the corner of my eye, head bowed and fingers flicking away at the tiny screen over and over again. While she did this, a whole world passed by, just on the other side of the window she was sitting next to, but I don’t think the woman saw any of it. She was completely immersed in the device she was operating.

I felt sorry for her. The ride wasn’t exactly exciting, but at least the scenery was pleasant to look at, unless of course you don’t care for winding streets and hills that include bicyclists, trees, joggers, and often a few crazy drivers thrown in just for the fun of it. The route I take to hang with my ex was set up to avoid the pitfalls of rush hour traffic, and to their credit, it works. It’s the route I would take, were I driving a motorized vehicle, or maybe even riding my bicycle. There are twists and turns that most normal bus drivers do not have to navigate, and I am often impressed with the way it is handled. I like getting to my destination safely, and in good time, just like most folks do.

It is, admittedly, a long ride, but one I could never take while immersed in my phone. First of all, I don’t find gadgets and technology particularly fascinating or fun. Add to this the fact that I do not give a damn for what is popular, what is happening with celebrities, or what is going on in this fucked up world, and you begin to see why I do not have my head buried in my phone, tablet, or laptop for lengthy periods of time unless I am doing something work-related. I also cannot stand watching videos of any kind on such a tiny screen, so things either go unwatched by me, or I wait until I am at least on the laptop before I view them. My phone is mostly for communication. I make a few calls a month, send zillions of text messages, and occasionally use it to take photographs, get directions, reserve a DVD, or things of convenience like that. My phone does not play my music, an iPod does that. My phone does not show me movies, either the television or at least the laptop does. I think you get the point; I am not fascinated by, or obsessed with, devices.

My phone is almost always with me though. Even when I am not using it, I have it near me so I can receive messages and respond to them, or answer it if it rings. My phone does alert me to incoming emails, but rarely are they of such importance that I need to respond right away. My life is simple, and minimal, as you would expect from an antisocial introvert. Friends are few, and my world can be pretty narrow and focused at times. With a like punkin in my life, I have ceased turning it off at night when I go to sleep, like I used to, because I want to be available for her if she needs me for any reason. This is the Fatherly side of me that I am sure she has grown to love, even while wholly embracing my very deviant side. We communicate via text on a daily basis, and I can’t imagine how empty my days would seem if we did not.

Apart from that, my phone is not that important, or mesmerizing to me, as it seems to be to others. There are memes and put downs created to make fun of people who don’t look up front their phones, and I laugh or shake my head in disgust because I know they are not about me. I am not a “zombie” who shuffles along, head bowed, unaware of my surroundings. I am not the kind of idiot who is so immersed in his phone that he walks into a ditch, or another person. Did you know China developed special pedestrian lanes for phone obsessed people? It’s only a matter of time before something like that starts happening in the United States.


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