Tag: Assignment 1

I’m (un?)lucky enough to have already spent a recent day without my phone – left in the backseat of an Uber and turned off within minutes of my disembarkation – so I felt like a relative phone-free pro going into this assignment. Before I turned off my phone on Wednesday night, I already knew which apps would be most usable from my laptop vs. iPad, and to enable iMessage from my email instead of just my phone number. In a sign of Apple’s dominance in my life, I set my morning alarm on my iPad (feeling a little sad I was losing one night of sleep tracking from my usual iPhone app) then charged my Apple Watch (to be swapped out with my usual analog watch so that I’d have something to track my steps). Finally, I reminded my partner that I’d be without my phone all day so he needed to just trust I’d show up to our off-peak Valentine’s Day date on time.

For most of the day, I felt fine, and in ways, more free. I’d like to think I’m not “addicted” to my phone since I wasn’t reaching for it out of habit and I didn’t crave any particular use of it. I did, however, miss key elements of certainty and distraction.

On certainty –

I had a 7:15am workout class booked for Thursday morning, and while I’d been to this particular studio before, I wasn’t sure how long the walk would be. Usually, I would have checked on my phone en route, but instead I had to check on my iPad while I was still on my home WiFi. After class, I wanted to grab a smoothie at one of the cafes I knew was near the studio, but couldn’t remember any in particular, couldn’t look it up since I was phoneless, and decided to just get on the T to school instead of (gasp!) asking any humans around me.

I had a few moments like this throughout the day, doing weird things I wasn’t used to, just because I didn’t have instant access to online information. I could have guesstimated the walking distance myself, and I could have just wandered one block to find a smoothie. Instead, I feel like I gave up – like when I didn’t have my phone on me, I became this somewhat useless person who refused to use resources unless they were on a smartphone screen.

On distraction –

I lost count of the number of times I wanted my phone on me just so I could either read (Twitter or email newsletters) or listen to something (especially since I was in the middle of Memoirs of a Geisha on audiobook.) Instead, I read… anything I could. Whether by luck or something else, I carried a lot of reading with me on Thursday. I read the actual newspaper, which I get every day but usually just skim, and learned about how Puerto Rico lost millions in an email phishing scam. I read a book that’s been in my backpack since 2019. I read the estimated time of arrival signs in the T stop way more often than I usually do, and it made time feel like it was moving more slowly. I read the ads in the T stop and finally learned about the weekend Red Line construction. I read posters and digital signage across MIT and realized there really is too much going on across campus.

I realized how bad I am at being bored, at allowing myself to just stare / zone out and think. I wanted to have something in front of my face, or in my ears, the whole day. I didn’t mind that it couldn’t be my phone, and I was lucky to have other distractions with me to keep my brain occupied, observing, intaking rather than mulling. This is the worst part about my relationship with my phone – the way it distracts me when I’m not with other people (and even sometimes when I am with other people). I think my partner and I were both secretly thrilled when I showed up to dinner still phoneless, the two of us forced to purely enjoy each other’s company over tacos and ghost pepper margaritas.

Bonus thoughts

One “good” thing I missed about my phone usage was taking photos. I love capturing small moments of joy, especially food, sometimes for myself and sometimes for social media. It’s just a convenience that decent cameras are now embedded in smartphones, and I think if I had a compact digital camera in addition to my phone, I’d be happier to leave my data-connected phone at home more often and just have a camera on me.

Another positive about phones is the ease with which we can intentionally connect with other people. I had the strongest urge to text my partner when I was on my way to dinner. I still can’t pinpoint why, but I felt that urge from the moment I stepped off campus to the moment I walked into the restaurant. I wanted him to know where I was, that I was thinking of him, and a little to know he was thinking of me (based on whether he responded to my text). I’m not sure this is a good thing – maybe it’s another sign of my dependence on my phone – but it gave me some hope about our phones as contributors to strong interpersonal relationships, and not just a crutch for modern, digitally mediated interactions.

Overall, I’d give the phone-free experience 4/5 stars. Worth a try, but probably not for everyone.

I chose Monday, February 17, to be the day I went without my phone for 24 hours. Sunday night before I went to bed, I set my phone in the other room and didn’t pick it up again until Tuesday morning. It was quite the enlightening experience. The funny part is that during the 24 hours, the biggest things I missed weren’t the things I do most on my phone but were the basic utility things like taking a picture, checking my calendar, or texting and calling my wife. I was able to make accommodations for most of these things since I had my laptop with me practically all day (had to Google how to simply take a picture with my computer’s webcam).

It was a pretty typical day, and I feel like I was able to focus much better and I got a lot of homework done, which was exactly what I needed. Knowing that I still had access to do almost anything I could do with my phone if I needed made my use of the internet much more deliberate. Being freed from the constant ping of notifications was also very refreshing.

Overall, the 24 hours was not difficult. However, the next morning, I had my phone again, and felt compelled to “catch up” on the things that I had “missed out on” the previous day. Probably due to the lack of quick convenience of checking anything on social media on my phone, I felt like I needed to check my Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other feeds first thing. After pretty much wasting the entire first half of my morning, I was pretty appalled by the comparison between how I felt the day before and that morning.

“Addiction” can seem like a strong word, but I don’t think it’s necessarily inaccurate for me sometimes. The ease and convenience that having a smartphone provides makes it very easy to overuse. I really appreciate having the ability to communicate with people quickly and to take pictures and record notes, but I could perhaps do without the added extreme ease of access that such a device provides.

I’ve been interested in and have used the various tools that Google has rolled out on various Android devices, including my Google Pixel phone, all under the “Digital Wellbeing” banner. This exercise has helped me to see how using those tools have definitely helped me to tame my smartphone usage, but perhaps there are even more ways that I can tweak the tools to help me manage my behavior.

Something of note is that I will probably include my internet browser as one of my “Focus” apps that are restricted throughout the day since I can do quick Google searches throughout the day through a little widget. If there’s anything that I want to look into more extensively, I can make a note of it later and come back to it later in the day, or I can pull out my computer and check it out there.

One other thing I can do is find some sort of app or something that will package my notifications and only release them at specific intervals, instead of right when they come in. While I am aware that there are some disadvantages with that, I feel like it would help train me to be more focused.

I loved the benefits this exercise brought to light, including limiting distractions and making my usage of the internet and other technological tools much more deliberate. I only looked up things that were the most important thoughts throughout the day, letting the unimportant fleeting thoughts die out.

Overall, I had a much more fulfilling day due to the sense of purpose I held and not deviating from it. I’m not ready to throw away my phone, but I certainly will be implementing more measures to free myself from some of its enticing and addictive behaviors it can instill in me. I would highly recommend anyone trying out this exercise to get a better sense of their behavior and what they can do to improve themselves and their connection to others. It certainly helped me a lot.

Before going to bed, I informed my family and friends that I won’t be easily reachable the next day. I also took out my watch that I hadn’t been using since I received an apple watch for Christmas – figured I would need to know the time as I walk around campus. As I was falling asleep, I thought that keeping my phone charged next to my bed (because I needed an alarm) and starting my No Phone day with a phone next to my head, I was already not off to a great start. 

As I woke up, finished my morning routine, placed my phone far up on my shelf, and sat to start working, I got excited for the productive unconnected morning ahead, and succeeded in focusing for a good 3 hour of work. 

Towards the end of my session, as my attention levels were dropping, my compulsive reflexes of typing “we.” and “fa.” to access the web.whatsapp.com and facebook.com tabs on my laptop, were much more repeated. The slot machine effect was pronounced when I focused on what I was lacking – I had to fill in the gap. I then felt the urge to reach out to grab my phone from the shelf while keeping it face down and placed it right next to me as I was finishing up my last reading. I was not even questioning these FOMSI urges and still believed I needed my phone next to me, face down – for today my phone was technically just a black rectangular plate. Why did I need to keep it close, if I knew I wasn’t going to pick it up and check notifications? 

I left the house for a quick lunch with my friend in Broadsheet, just near my house. As I was waiting for him, I reflected that my most intense urge was not to check notifications, nor was it to listen to podcasts (although I was craving to listen to “Your undivided attention” that I just discovered after reading Tristan Harris’s article) – but it was much more the fact that I wanted to check in with my long-distance relationships. The time I usually spent killing, whether it is while fixing my lunch, or walking to school, I usually call someone from back home. Not having my phone highlighted this attachment addiction, that had been reinforced with the ease of connectivity. I also noticed that I couldn’t satisfy the spontaneous urges of adding a book to my goodreads list (that will most probably stay on this to-read list for a long time), or checking my Hinge likes (that I mindlessly swipe left on, with no exception – but that’s a different story), or just simply… scrolling! I couldn’t scroll, my finger missed the feeling of repeatedly jumping from  mail > insta > facebook > twitter > mail > insta > mail > insta, and this felt like a true addiction.

After a pleasant lunch, I went back home to finish a few of my readings before my yoga session at 7pm. Just as I arrived home, I had a mini subdued adrenaline rush when thinking about all the notifications that I will be checking later at night – eerily, I felt excited.

I still had 2 more hours until class, and laziness started to kick in. I was increasingly tempted to reach out to my phone to waste time. Checking whatsapp on my laptop before leaving, I get a message from Jackson on a group chat, asking to have dinner tonight at 8:30 – right after my yoga class. Pleased with the idea, I had to impose location immediately, and rapidly typed  “Let’s go to Trina’s Starlight Lounge, @jackson @nicolas @sue @isa are you in?” Forcing them all to check their phone, I waited just 7 minutes (it was already 6:52), got positive replied from Nicolas and Jackson, closed my laptop and left the house – spontaneity was not an option without a phone.

The assignment was off to a not-so-great start. I had committed to entirely cut my internet access for a duration of 24 hours, and I was already bargaining with myself to delay the experiment. There was this Really Important Phone Call I had to make, and it already felt like I had to bend the rules. For my defense, I was meant to check in with my partner, who had been navigating immigration issues from outside of the country, on the other side of the planet. Granted, I should have made that call earlier, but as anyone involved in a remote relationship knows, the complexity of romantic life scales up with the number of time zones between you and the other half. In any case, even before the experiment had started, it was already impacted by the non-negotiable nature of these interactions. I called my partner, and then proceeded to shut down all my online devices.

Later in the morning, I found myself wondering what I was even going to do while eating, as I usually would watch some professional esports games during breakfast. Slightly embarrassed, I remembered the contempt I once felt toward people who had television turned on at all-times including family meals. For once, I would be eating at the dinner table rather than my desk, without a digital presence to entertain me.

As I ate, I made a mental list of things this temporary no-phone-no-internet rule would entail. At the top, there was the inability to access most media (I did not have access to physical formats other than books), work on my research (most of my documents were hosted in the cloud), and code (you could only go so far while offline). More surprising, I could not even play music, as my MIDI keyboard required an app in order to make any sound. I had been aware of my dependence on online services, but this whole ordeal felt unnecessarily disruptive: surely, I should be able to read my own writing even without a connection? Thankfully, no phone also meant no alarm clock, and the 24 hour period would be over before I woke up the next day. For the time being, I was on my way out to see some friends in Brooklyn.

Of course, I had told them in advance I would not be reachable, in the event they changed their plans. They did anyway, and I arrived an hour early, although I had spent 20 minutes lost in Clinton Hill, asking directions from people on the street, freezing in a cold weather I had not anticipated. Things started going a lot smoother as the other guests began to arrive, and the rest of my day was spent socially, in a way that did not require a screen. Admittedly, there were a couple of instances where I found myself standing in a room full of people staring at their devices, but I did not miss mine too much otherwise.

Before it started, I had decided to make the assignment extra hard, by opting to not just shut down my phone but also give up on all internet access. That’s because I anticipated a mere no-phone policy would be just too easy to live with: as I was in-between jobs, with a partner stranded abroad, there was not a lot going on in my inboxes. If I had been a productive agent of society under capitalism’s rule, this whole experiment would have been a lot more disruptive. I imagined missing on important communications from coworkers, professional opportunities in the making, and content of the kind that enables us to remain relevant. In retrospect, that made me wonder: how much longer could I make this last?

I think it’s worth noting that I tried doing this assignment 4 times before I finally succeeded. I finally succeeded on Feb 17 to Feb 18 (Tuesday before this was due…I cut it close). I kept feeling the need to text or message or call about a thing, order a Lyft or look up directions, etc — all things that broke the cycle in previous attempts.

I wanted to do a full 24 hours, so I gave up my phone at 1pm on Monday and was going to turn it back on again Tuesday night at 7pm (just over 24 hours since there was a sleeping aspect here).

By 2:45 I had already missed a message and felt bad about it. Because I didn’t get a push notification on my watch that is linked to my phone. With my phone off my Apple Watch is just a watch and pedometer. So I was definitely not going to be getting messages as fast as I would not always be on my laptop.

I left lab and went grocery shopping. I struggled at the grocery store, unable to remember everything on my list or look at ingredients for the recipe I had wanted to make. I forgot two ingredients. I got home and found myself very rapidly checking everything on my laptop as soon as I did.

The evening was difficult for me as I use my phone to help unwind and fall asleep. I usually watch videos and then when I’m sleepy and unwound I put on a sleeping mix on Spotify and go to bed. I also use it as an alarm clock in the morning and a chance to prolong my sleep in the morning and getting out of bed by answering emails and notifications.

So instead I used an old alarm clock from my roommate, which was unfortunate as I not only didn’t sleep as well but also couldn’t find a snooze feature on his clock. So I woke up still sleepy and groggy and cold and got stressed and checked my email, the weather, and my commute on my laptop before I left the house.

Not having music or my social media on my commute was not fun. I usually spend my walk/train ride on my phone on social media, the news, and communication. Getting into work I found myself again check emails as soon as I got my computer up and running.

I will say the thing that made it easier was that I had a lot of meetings and class on Tuesday. I had class from 9:30 to 12:30 and and a meeting at 3 and another meeting at 4 and a social engagement at 5. After that I went home and was very very happy to turn my phone on at 10pm.

Overall, going without my phone was inconvenient but not horrible. Having packed days definitely makes them go faster. And in meetings and class I am less drawn to my phone than when I am just at home or in my office working or relaxing (for example, I even use my phone while watching TV).

I felt slower and the accommodations I had to make were mostly due to communication and directions and scheduling. But I found myself able to do it all on my laptop, just not as fast and also not on the move as I can on my phone. In our digital world losing one device can just make you rely more on others.

I wouldn’t see my phone as addiction to its content but rather a tether to the speed and efficiency that I have grown accustomed to living. I pride myself on always being available and in communication with others. I also do some organizing around my department in terms of events and ordering. Messaging and email make up more of my phone usage than social media and even on Instagram I am constantly chatting with friends. The anxiety and need to have my device is tied to this — its ability to be an extension of me in the digital space to leverage all the things I can do on it.