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Dumbphone - 1st Week Reflections

One week into my experiment to see if I can live without my smartphone and things are going pretty well. So let's reflect on the pros and cons, starting with the cons first.

There's still the odd app or two that I have to use which meant that my smartphone was switched on once or twice this week. I find my banking app much easier to use than the web version and had to use it four days ago to pay my wage. The only other app that I may have to use is What's App as there is no comparable web version  (I believe there is and I'll check this out). However, in the last week I think I've only looked at it once and that was in the first couple of days and haven't looked at it since. There were a also a couple of moments where I would liked to have used my smartphone camera. Texting is still fiddly. No predictive text but at least I've now worked out how to do a capital letter. Finally, I found that for about three days my sleep was slightly affected. I found that I was waking up about 90 minutes earlier than normal and thinking about my phone! I don't know whether this anxiety had anything to do with what I doing but it's a bit of a coincidence.

https://www.boredpanda.com/cartoon-smartphone-cellphone-addiction/

The pros. Haven't charged my phone for 7 days and the battery icon is showing I still have at least three quarters charged! At this rate I should be able to get at the very least another week out of that one charge. I haven't missed constantly looking at my Twitter app, checking my emails and What's App messages, looking at my Fantasy Leagues team and searching Google to find the answer to any question that arises. Most the things I used to do on the smartphone can be done via my laptop through logging into the web versions. It's not as if previously I wasn't using my laptop. I was using my both my laptop and smartphone. But the pleasure is now being able to get away from the nagging, invasive smartphone. My boredom threshold was extremely low and found I would move towards it as soon as there was a lull in what I was doing. It could also be a huge distraction when I should have been working. It appears that I'm not the only one. A 2018 survey found that the average UK user checks their phone every 12 minutes. What has become so essential that I have to look at this thing every 12 minutes? We are certainly addicted...well addicted to certain apps. Even though it's only been a week, I love shutting my laptop lid so that no technology is then constantly demanding my attention. I'm also beginning to feel more relaxed and less restless. It will be interesting to see how the second week of not using the smartphone will go. With schools starting again after the Christmas break my school support starts again, with a greater amount of communication between myself and them.

As footnote, I met my brother yesterday for the first time in a while. He spotted my new phone on the table and I told him what I was doing. Interestingly he said that he was wanting to do a similar thing, to cut down on his reliance on technology and that for Christmas he had bought himself a Filofax! Very retro. Might have to get one myself :-)

Shock! Horror! Do you know how much time you spend on the phone? - The Guardian
Americans check their phone 80 times a day:study - New York Post
A decade of smartphones.We now spend an entire day a week online - The Telegraph
Signs and symptoms of cell phone addiction - PsychGuides.com
Smartphones blamed as the majority of adults now gamble - The Daily Telegraph
The  Mobile Phone Ban in French Schools, One Year On. Would It Work Elsewhere? - Forbes
Up to 1 in 4 are addicted to smartphones - Yahoo
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