Could you go a whole day without your mobile phone?

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Could you go a whole day without your mobile phone?

Postby maureenho » 19 Nov 2013, 15:19

Could you go a whole day without your mobile phone?

Stacia Briggs Tuesday, November 19, 2013
12:32 PM

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According to research, the average user checks their mobile phone 110 times a day. Stacia Briggs went cold turkey for 24 hours without her beloved mobile phones (plural).

What I learnt from my day without my mobiles

I was right to argue that it should only be a day and not a week.

I find it hard to cope without immediate answers to questions, even if the questions are pointless, such as “what happens to you if someone pins back your eyelids for a whole day and you can’t blink?”

I am far too interested in the minutiae of other people’s lives (see: Twitter), although in my defence, detailing the minutiae of other people’s lives is how I make a living.

I should really buy a watch.

I accept that being so reliant on (two) rectangles of metal and glass is pathetic, needy and – in the grand scale of things – a disgrace. This hasn’t stopped me being reliant, however.

I can’t claim I was an enthusiastic recruit to the concept of being mobile phone-less for a day, but things could have been worse: the initial plan from my editor was a week. Quelle horreur.

Having played a couple of blinding, family-based Get Out of Jail Free cards, I bargained my phone ban down to 24 hours (thanks, teenage children. Thanks, Mum). Yes, I know it sounds pathetic, yes I realise a vast number of people have far greater problems to deal with... however: a day without recourse to either of my mobile phones really did feel like a technological amputation.

What was I supposed to do if I got caught in a queue? How would I cope with trying to arrange meetings without the back-up of an ‘I’m running a bit late...’ text? What if I was away from a computer when I suddenly, desperately, needed to find out when Leo Sayer’s Orchard Road single was released? On a philosophical note, if I saw something amusing but couldn’t use my camera to take a picture of it for Twitter, did it ever really exist?

I have two iPhones – one black, one white, one for work, one for outside work – and wherever I go, they go with me. The first thing I do in the morning is switch off the phone alarm and check my messages, the last thing I do at night is activate my phone alarm and, er, check my messages.

If I’m on my way to an appointment, I will invariably call someone as I walk. Or check Twitter. Or watch a hilarious video of a skateboarding cat. Or Facebook message my children with a selection of tailored nagging programmes.

And I’m not alone: between the hours of 5pm and 8pm, 75 per cent of smartphone users are actively using their devices and ‘high frequency users’ (surely longhand for ‘teenagers’) check their phones once every six seconds.

Once every six seconds is proper dedication to communication and must sinisterly mean that there is some unsavoury multi-tasking occurring in bathrooms, kitchens and possibly bedrooms. I shudder to think.

On average, people check their phones 23 times a day for text messages, 22 times for voice messages and 18 times to find out the time, spending their other visits on the internet or using their phone as a camera, diary, alarm clock or – perish the thought – as an actual phone.

This seems quite restrained.

My ban began at midnight and after a flurry of warning texts sent out to ensure that key people didn’t think I’d dropped off the perch or suddenly decided to send them to Coventry for no obvious reason.

I put my phones in a drawer and went to sleep. These first seven hours without mobile phones were, I found, a complete doddle – just another 17 to make it through, how hard could it be? Within 30 seconds of waking up, I was fighting the urge to prise open the drawer. Within a minute, I had practically convinced myself that I’d definitely missed a desperately important text from a friend in need who might well DIE without an instant reply from me.

We live in an ultra-connected, ultra-stimulatory world where communication is immediate and where text rage descends like red mist if someone doesn’t reply to us in the timescale we’ve invented for them.

With a job that relies heavily on email, social media and the internet, without mobile technology I felt as if I’d suffered a bereavement.

I didn’t get my “good morning!” text from my Mother, I had to rely on a steam-powered alarm clock to wake me up, I had to look out of the window instead of checking the weather on my phone (this really is a sad admission) and I had to use my brain and not my calendar to remember what I had planned for the day.

In retrospect, choosing half-term for the mobile-less experiment wasn’t the best timing.

My children are, at the best of times, harder to pin down than a cobweb in a hurricane and I rely entirely on Facebook’s messenger service in order to have a clue where they are, what they’re doing and who they’re with.

Relying on old-fashioned ‘planning’ without the failsafe option of being able to postpone or delay by text was received by both children with the enthusiasm I’d expect if I announced we were about to set off on a maths-based activity holiday.

Even worse, I couldn’t covertly stalk them by checking their ‘status’ on Facebook and working out whether or not they were at home, on the move or AWOL – it was like reversing back into the 1990s at warp speed.

Without a phone to rely on, I had to walk from appointment to appointment, car park to desk without glancing at a tiny screen – instead, I looked at that huge screen in the air: the sky.

I thought of all the people I owed a phone call to, all the emails that I could have already dealt with, all the messages that had undoubtedly come through from those I hadn’t pre-warned, desperate to know I was still alive.

Then I got a grip.

At work, reunited with my email on my laptop, I felt somewhat less panicky although slightly perturbed that no one whatsoever appeared to have missed my absence – it’s almost as if communicating with me isn’t the most important thing in other people’s universe. I know. I couldn’t believe it either.

The space where my phones usually sat – waiting to be unlocked, tapped, messed around with, answered – was empty, although my eyes travelled to their resting place almost constantly and I had to stop my left hand from snaking across to the void in a bid to grab a phone and type in a password.

A lunch arrangement had to be made on a normal phone. I had to be on time. When my lunch partner was late, I had to entertain myself rather than let the internet take the strain. First world problems, all of them.

On the plus side, I felt as if I had more time, as if the exchanges I made were more meaningful on the basis that they were mainly in person and, frankly, no one needs to know when Leo Sayer’s Orchard Road was released, even if a bet rides on it. When the 24 hours passed and I checked my phones, disaster hadn’t occurred, I hadn’t missed anything scintillating, no one was exposed on a mountain and waiting for me to inform the emergency services and I didn’t even have any missed follower requests on Twitter. In short: being incommunicado by mobile phone hadn’t made an iota of difference.

I could learn a lesson from this – I could use my phones less, take regular breaks from them, look at the bigger picture rather than a tiny screen. Will I? Probably not. You can lead a horse to internet-less water, but you can’t make them wish they weren’t using Google.

The science:

According to research, it’s dopamine which leads us to continually check our inbox to see if we’ve got new messages and Twitter and Facebook to see if other people are having more fun than we are.

Dopamine increases our general level of arousal, keeps us motivated and makes us curious. It also leads us to seek more and more information and with the internet, Twitter and texting we can achieve instant gratification at the touch of a button.

With instant rewards, the desire to be gratified grows and grows. Pavlovian cues such as a sound or light that activates when a text or email arrives enhances the addictive effect as does the short and sweet nature of a Tweet or text – 140 characters in a message makes you yearn for more.

http://www.eveningnews24.co.uk/news/cou ... _1_3015710
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Re: Could you go a whole day without your mobile phone?

Postby Jeanne » 19 Nov 2013, 15:29

I could last a day or a week without my phone, but would need to wear my watch, as I check the time on it. Also, it is good if George needs to get me urgently, or vice versa, which has never happened. x Jeanne
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Re: Could you go a whole day without your mobile phone?

Postby wendy » 19 Nov 2013, 15:39

I could last a day or a week with my mobile phone,  but not a day would I miss on the internet.
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Re: Could you go a whole day without your mobile phone?

Postby maureenho » 19 Nov 2013, 15:48

I could go a day without mobile phone but I couldn't go without Internet.

I would imagine it would be difficult for those who use their mobile for emails, Facebook and Twitter.
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Re: Could you go a whole day without your mobile phone?

Postby annie » 19 Nov 2013, 16:25

Same as everyone else all week with no phone but lost without internet
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Re: Could you go a whole day without your mobile phone?

Postby mumxtwo » 19 Nov 2013, 16:46

I very rarely use my mobile for accessing the internet, I could manage without internet for a week, I do when Graham is on holiday, I could manage without my mobile for a week too, providing I had it set for emergency calls only re Mum, Tommo and Ed.
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Re: Could you go a whole day without your mobile phone?

Postby Jeanne » 19 Nov 2013, 17:29

My daughters practically have theirs glued to their ears! x Jeanne
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Re: Could you go a whole day without your mobile phone?

Postby Misspears » 19 Nov 2013, 17:34

I might be able to go a day without a mobile,I wouldn't like to be without a mobile or Internet

Ann x
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Re: Could you go a whole day without your mobile phone?

Postby JaneJ » 19 Nov 2013, 17:37

I know what you mean Jeanne. I wouldn't recognise Sam with her head up!! I predict she will have a hump back by the time she is 20!!

I really wouldn't miss my phone at all. I have the fact that I can't escape! I have it obviously for Lee to get hold of me in an emergency. The girls ring with their emergencies (usually what's for dinner, when will you be home and has my favourite top been top been washed!!)

Now internet is a totally different question! If I was deprived of internet access i would be a mess!! No Chill! No way!!
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Re: Could you go a whole day without your mobile phone?

Postby daisy » 19 Nov 2013, 18:56

I couldn't do without internet but mobile phone - well I don't use it often.  I only use mobile for calls and texts. 
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