I gave up my smartphone for Lent

A litany of embarrassments

“Riddles in the Dark” by Alan Lee

Normally this kind of essay is encouraging. I write how much better life is, freed from my digital cage. Readers respond from their own cages—some visible or invisible. Either “hear, hear,” or “do you communicate by carrier pigeon?” Life goes on. However, I want to do something different: I want to steer away from the plentiful good of giving up my smartphone and instead focus on the deep shame this experiment unveiled.

The decision to indulge this trial was unplanned. Several months ago I bought a flip-phone, activated its service, and dragged my feet in the hope to transition to it. Embarrassingly, I regularly carried two sets of phones: the flip-phone for most activities and the smartphone to fill in all the little gaps. Nothing makes you feel more like a crack addict than showing off your dumb phone to all your friends while sneaking into closets to take secret hits of maps or email.

Two days after Ash Wednesday, I decided the extra line was a waste of money. I went cold turkey no smartphone and these are the things I learned about myself.

Stowing it

I made some ground rules. First, the smartphone was to spend the majority of Lent in my basement attached to its charger. Second, I was not allowed to touch it but once at the end of each day to check text messages—the only thing I could not migrate.

On the morning of the first day, I picked it off my bedside table and escorted it like a prisoner to the basement. On the way I learned my first important lesson: the bloody thing blinks like a strobe. Call me scrupulous, but I had already agreed not to check it and there were at least a dozen delicious push notifications pining for my attention. It is frankly humiliating how difficult it was for me not to look at them.

My pocket stifled most of the temptation for three flights of stairs until I used my fingertips to delicately attach it (as to avoid further blinks) to the wireless charger and be rid of it.

‘I am sorry,’ he said. ‘But I felt so queer. And yet it would be a relief in a way not to be bothered with it any more. It has been so growing on my mind lately. Sometimes I have felt it was like an eye looking at me. And I am always wanting to put it on and disappear, don’t you know; or wondering if it is safe, and pulling it out to make sure. I tried locking it up, but I found I couldn’t rest without it in my pocket. I don’t know why. And I don’t seem able to make up my mind.’¹

What have I got in my pocket?

Nothing. The answer was nothing. I had nothing in my pocket. Yet seventy times a day I felt a cruel vibration or the pressure of a rectangular shape like a ghost limb. For a short while I replaced the shape feeling with my flip-phone. However, that phone was so useless that I would misplace it around the house and office.

The despair is both physical and mental. Like Bilbo and his ring, I too found myself checking to see if I had it. I will even admit that I went to the basement a few times in the beginning just to check on it. More than touch, I would hear and fear the notifications coming in. In that elusive fright I would dash to my computer and see if my intuitions had been correct. Sometimes they were, if only a junk email or gaming buddy’s message. When my guess would turn up wrong, the response was loneliness: “nobody wants to talk to you.”

These early days, to me, were truly chaotic in the way they demonstrated how much I relied on this dark black prism to maintain homeostasis. Withdrawal was tough.

I could not wake up

Going to sleep without the smartphone was remarkably easy. There was no rough transition period. No more late night sudoku—instant sleep. However my mornings proved extremely difficult. What is the first thing you do in the morning if you are an addict like me (I do not drink coffee)? You snooze your first alarm and check your notifications from the pillow. But alas, no notifications!

Based on my initial findings you would assume I ran downstairs to my computer in a desperate vie for affection. But no—I did not. I went right back to sleep! Waking up sometime later I would curse my laziness and only then find myself quickly running to a computer to check what I had missed. It is crystal clear to me now that for years my body has relied on that wake up call of a dopamine hit.

Adjusting to this piece has proven largely unsuccessful and I will admit to having a laptop at my bedside now. My bumbling medical research tells me it would probably take months to fix this reliance.

I need a computer right now

There were two specific increases in my time spent daily: computer time and everything else time. Without a tiny computer in my pocket, I lacked the small repetitive imp that reminded me it was “time to do work.” Being away from the computer during the work day—specifically errands outside the home or business meetings—was a nightmare.

Again, the first week was worst of all because I had no baseline for how much my delay would affect my work. Everytime I stepped away from my computer, I left the security blanket of knowing I could respond to a client instantly if needed. Suddenly I could be dropping the ball or missing something important.

I would drive my kids somewhere, race back, and dash into my (remote) office without greeting my wife—often times outright dismissing her or any children in my way. The results were, again, varied and banal. Most times there was nothing waiting for me in my inbox and other times the emails or work were not urgent at all. In fact, I wonder if any of my clients even noticed the change after all was said and done.

My brashness subsided over time with a bit of humility. I began bringing books to drop-off or playground time. I sped home less and found that if anyone actually needed me and could not reach me, they did call.

I cannot hide anymore

I mentioned the “everything else time” which saw an increase in my routine. It is difficult to nail down in words what exactly that is. But, for now, let us call it living. In lots of tiny different ways that were usually mediated by a screen, I was present to myself and those around me. I could no longer dip inside my screen whenever I felt annoyed, bored, or out of place. Often times I had to exercise my brain and my pride. I will give a few examples.

A few weeks back we had extended an invitation for dinner to a family. My wife, diligently planning and preparing the meal asked me to confirm the date, any dietary restrictions, and share what this couple could bring for the meal—she asked me this in the kitchen. Usually I would just grab my smartphone, shoot the text off, and then get lost in some other news or games. Time to run to the computer! But by the time I made it down the stairs, I turned back around and needed to ask my wife to repeat her instructions one more time. After sending off the short missive, I returned back to the kitchen because there was nothing else to do.

Then just last weekend I found myself in the emergency room with my four year old son. It was a particularly life threatening trip with lots of questions that no doctors could answer. I am certain I would have spent it head down in my phone—telling myself I was “searching for answers”—all the while scrolling through nonsense to numb the pain of seeing my young child suffering. Instead, we read books together and spoke—more than I have ever spoken with my son in his short life. The comfort we shared was tangible. Looking back at previous ER trips, I am ashamed of what I did to my other kids.

What I learned very quickly was that my brain is used to constantly doing—performing all manner of insignificant tasks inside of a screen with no care for the outside world. Even my loved ones. When you are faced with the world (naked and without a smartphone) you have to confront it and shape it to your liking. This is called boredom, I think.

Boredom is a reflexive state. It is the starting point for love. When you are constantly ingesting stimuli and simulacra, there is no place for reflection. There is no place for making decisions about the next thing. To quote Jim Gaffigan, “I can’t stop eating. I haven’t been hungry in twelve years.”

Car trips are perilous and boring

The disruption to my driving was the most inevitable. We exist in a world of calendar invites and Google maps. So obviously I got lost several times when going new places. But I baked in time to get lost which meant I was usually twenty to thirty minutes early to every meeting. Thankfully I never had to ask for directions. Being honest and playing the numbers game, Lent was not a large enough sample size of days. If I got rid of my smartphone tomorrow, odds are good that I would eventually be late for something important or get completely lost somewhere in the forests of Maryland.

But let us turn to the ignominious part of my story (I had to crack open a thesaurus to start finding synonyms for the word embarrassing). Driving to places I knew was now insanely boring! Why? Well—I had no smartphone to read. Yes, I am one of those people. Six hour drive? Six hours of reading. I have never been an audiophile. While I listen to music occasionally, my drives are primarily spent read or responding to emails, texts, and any other phone traffic. I know this is disconcerting and terrifying. My children tell their friends, “I have the only daddy who can read and drive”—though I wish they would stop that. This error in judgment was finally brought home to me with my first (and only) car accident two years ago when I was desperately trying to respond to a client.

No music, no reading, and no entertainment. Just my mind and the road.

Less chatter, less communication

I lost touch with my friends in a few superficial ways. First, there were the texts I never saw but once a day. Next, the various chat programs I only read while attentive and seated at a computer. Those conversations were healthy, but they definitely had finite beginnings and ends. This was new for a lot of people unaccustomed to the brb (be right back) or bbl (be back later) that my generation invented. For me personally, the sacrifice was shedding the potential of those moments and opportunities. So often in my line of work the winner is the first to respond. It was difficult not being the winner anymore.

Interactions with my wife were more impactful. The omnipresence of a small screaming child has always made phone calls strenuous. Text-based communication is a huge resource for our marriage. Stripped away, we were forced to again speak over the phone and I personally found it thrilling because I no longer had to discern meaning or style my responses. Text-based communications is actually a trap for men. As a husband, most of what you do is listen anyways. If I only had two buttons on my phone, one for “ok” and the other for “yep,” I would be perfectly content.

The loss of specific applications

Phone applications are a slight problem. Instead of ParkMobile, I had to swipe my credit card. Instead of the Wendy’s app, I had to physically talk to a human being. There were a few that presented annoying issues but none that made life unlivable.

Double authentication is clearly ludicrous

I hate it. I had to turn off a dozen double authentications to survive the experiment. Who is going to phish my credentials and login to make my car payment for me? No one.

No flashlight

This one is just funny. I did not realize how often I used my smartphone’s flashlight for dark crevices or creeping when the kids are asleep.

Happiness without rest

Easter Sunday has past and I have the smartphone back. I both love it and hate it. Its presence instantly brought me great relief—but I have lost my peace.

In 2018, I put on about as much weight as I ever have in my entire life. This increase had all the usual causes: a newborn child, a move to a new state, an eighty hour per week job, and an altogether overwhelming anxiety that I handled by mindlessly consuming soda and fast food. I could not see below my stomach, let alone touch my feet.

Losing weight is difficult and painful. I remember wanting to die a few times instead of dieting and exercise. I was mortified by how I looked in the mirror—but even more miserable in my pride. “Life is awful. I deserve this hamburger.” I carried with me an anxiety that had no name but was satiated with more and more consumption—and more hiding.

It was not until I lost all that weight a year later that I understood how life had been overweight. My back hurt less, my legs were no longer clumsy, my sex life was vastly improved, and I was no longer tired all the time. I felt like I could even breathe better.

This is the best metaphor I have to explain my experience in the last month. For every minor pleasure I lost, I fist fought my angry pride and at the end gained a treasury of peace.

In the final week, I stood in line after having ordered food. My wife called and my flip-phone rang like it was 1999. An Uber Eats employee standing next to me laughed and said, “that’s a hell of strange phone.” Having grown used to this kind of commentary, I gave him a smile and my canned response, “just trying to disconnect a little.” He paused, exhaled existentially, and looked deeply into my eyes. “God, tell me about it.”

1. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Chapter 1