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Unplugging from the world
Welcome to Stuff I Learned Yesterday. My name is Mark Des Cotes, I’ve shrunk a whole inch from my once 6’2″ hight, and I believe if you aren’t learning, you aren’t living. In today’s episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday I talk about ignoring your cellphone.
This will be my last pitch asking for your support in this year’s podcast awards. Voting ends on Tuesday, March 24th so you still have a whole week to participate. In case you forgot, Golden Spiral Media has 3 shows in the running. Stuff I Learned Yesterday in the General category, Arrow Squad in best produced and The Blacklist Exposed in entertainment. Head on over to goldenspiralmedia.com/podcastawards for all the details. And remember to vote daily.
Today’s Fun Fact of the Day: Did you know that there is an actual term for the fear associated with being without your cellphone or of loosing your cellphone signal? It’s called Nomophobia, which stands for no-mobile-phone-phobia. I’m not making this up.
As Darrell mentioned on Monday, we would like to know if our audio only policy is what’s holding you back from submitting something to our Friday Forum? Leave us a message in our Facebook group or via our feedback form at goldenspiralmedia.com/feedback and let us know. We’re not promising anything by if we get enough responses we may be inclined to open up the mailbags to written stories and feature them every few weeks.
Here’s What I leaned yesterday.
This past Friday was a day just like any other day. I worked until my wife got home then we prepared supper. My son was home for a couple of days from university so it was nice to have the whole family at the dinner table for a change. After the meal we cleaned up and then went about our various after supper activities.
Early evening found the four of us getting ready to watch a movie. Hunger Games Mocking Jay part 1 in case you’re interested. While sitting in our living room, waiting for everyone to join me I decided to take out my iPhone to check what NHL hockey games were going on that night. I saw my Toronto Maple Leafs would be playing the Calgary Flames and I thought they may even have a chance against them. I read a couple of articles pertaining to the upcoming game, then checked Twitter and Facebook. At one point I glanced up wondering when we were going to start the movie only to see my wife and both my kids also sitting in the living room. All three were looking at their phones. I had been so focused on my iPhone that I hadn’t even realized any of them had joined me. I made a decision then and there, that for the entire weekend I would be unplugging my cellphone. I went into the settings panel and turned off both data and wifi, blocking my iPhone from the world, in effect turning it into a… well, just a normal plain old cordless phone, imagine that. I then set it “do not disturb”. I could have just as easily turned the phone off, but my dad is 87 years old and still living alone so I need it on in case he tries to get a hold of me.
The great thing about the “do not disturb” function on the iPhone is that you can set it to ignore everyone that isn’t in your favourite list, and my favourite list contains only my dad and immediate family. So it was like unplugging my phone to everyone in the world except him, and the three people that were in the house with me. I wouldn’t get any tweets, Facebook messages, app notifications or text messages. I then got up and put my phone on the kitchen counter where I would be able to hear it if it rang. Then, without warning, I picked up the remote control and pressed play. My three family members heard the movie starting up and put away their phones and we enjoyed the rest of the evening.
Saturday morning, instead of picking up my phone like I always do, I turned on SportsCentre and found out my Leafs had lost to Calgary 6-3 and they would play Vancouver that night. Later that evening my wife and I were watching something on TV and she asked me where we had seen a certain actress before. Normally at that question I would take out my phone, open up IMDB, the Internet Movie Data Base and look it up. Instead I told my wife she looked familiar but I couldn’t remember where we had seen her and continued watching the show. That was it, sure I was curious, but I soon got over it, and not knowing where we had seen that actress before isn’t that big a deal.
For the entire weekend my phone remained unplugged from the world, sitting on the counter where I had placed it, and not once did it make a sound. Amazingly, when I finally picked it up Monday morning it was still almost fully charged. I guess it doesn’t use much power when it’s not doing anything.
Here’s what I learned.
The advancements in technology during our lifetime are staggering. And from what I’ve seen and read we’ve only hit the tip of the iceberg of what’s to come.
I worry sometimes that our reliance on these technologies is defining who we are. But then I think back to my childhood. My parents grew up without TVs or computers and could never understand my desire to constantly be in front of one. It’s no different for us. I grew up without cellphones, and even thought I rely on one now, it doesn’t compare to my kids experiences. They’ve never known a world without instant connectivity. Complaining that they always have their nosed in their phones is like my parents complaining that I was always in front of the TV or computer. I, just like my parents, just don’t get it. It’s how the world is today.
I’m glad I had a childhood without cellphones. That I grew up in a time when I had to knock on a friends door to see if they were home. That I had discussions at school talking about what we each did over the weekend or the night before. I relish the memories of dashing to the wall phone whenever it rang, sometimes bumping my mom or dad out of the way, hoping it was for me. I don’t remember the last time my kids answered our land line. But then again, why would they, it’s never for them. Through their mobiles they text, Skype, tweet, post and yes, sometimes they even call. They never question what their friends have been up to because they are in constant contact with them. I can’t begrudge them, because it’s what they know.
I may not be able to convince my kids of the benefits of turning off their cellphone for a weekend. I don’t even think I’d try. But that doesn’t stop me from unplugging mine. I realized this past weekend that I didn’t need to be notified of each play-by-play of my favourite hockey team. In case you’re interested, I found out on SportsCentre Sunday morning that Toronto had lost, yet again, to Vancouver on Saturday night. I also didn’t need to look up the answer to every little question I had. Most of them weren’t important anyway. And I really didn’t need to see every Tweet and Facebook post either. And I’m no worse off for not reading them.
I unplugged my phone for the weekend and the world didn’t come to an end.
Of course when I turned it back on Monday I was bombarded with all the things that I had missed over the weekend, but I just let them go, and I’ll never know what I missed. And I realize, I don’t care. So if I didn’t favourite your Tweet or like your Facebook post, don’t take it personally, I was just unplugging, taking some digital time off. And I guarantee, I’ll be doing it again.
I’m Mark Des Cotes, and this has been Stuff I Learned Yesterday.
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