#1 : in 365 days, I’m giving up my smartphone…
Against A watch and a pack of Post-its
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I’ve decided to get rid of my cell phone. That’s it.
I’m going to stop using my smartphone.
I’m going to delete most of the apps on it.
I’m going to set notifications from other apps to silent.
Above all, I’m going to stop taking my cell phone with me when I leave the house to go to work or out and about. It’ll stay right there, waiting for me, in the kitchen, between my coffee maker and my little cactus in a green ceramic pot, while I’m out in the world, free as the wind.
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Want the weather? Well, look out the window and grab an umbrella just in case.
It’s not January, but here are my New Year’s resolutions anyway: I’ll delete my social media accounts. I’ll quit WhatsApp. I won’t open any apps the moment I get bored. And I’ll stop spending my evenings on YouTube.
I’ve been thinking about this for a long time—vaguely for years, more intensely for months. Yet I always put off this resolution—which intimidates me and feels overwhelming—until tomorrow, until later, until another world. I put it off until tomorrow because I don’t know how to go about it—how to start quitting down my smartphone, how to keep quitting it down, how to finally quit my smartphone.
I’m sure, though, that I don’t want this life anymore, that I don’t want to spend my evenings on my couch, wasting time on YouTube for, what, 10 little minutes? Oh no, 30 minutes? Sorry, 55? No, my bad—1 hour and 37 minutes. 1 hour and 37 minutes of videos under 5 seconds long. I don’t want to suddenly jolt awake anymore, as if I’d just woken up from a nightmare or escaped drowning, look at my husband—who’s starting yet another minute of wasting his time on his phone—and say in a listless tone: “Okay, I’m going to bed.”
That’s it—I want to stop the endless scrolling, the likes, the apps, and all the rest.
Except that it’s easier said than done.
There's many a slip 'twixt cup and lip.
Between saying and doing, there’s an ocean.
I’m starting this newsletter to promise others—and promise myself—that in a year, I’ll give up my cell phone. I need to enlist the support of imperfect humans like myself, bring others aboard my vessel (a cruise ship or the Medusa’s raft—who knows?), and share with you the trials and tribulations of this modern odyssey: giving up the smartphone.
Because really, what do I even need my cell phone for?
To watch 5-second videos for an hour and a half? Meh. That’s not good.
To reply to work messages super fast? Meh. Not good either.
To buy stuff with a single click that I don’t really need and that will last about as long as an insect? Meh.
Worse yet, to spend 1 hour and 10 minutes looking at things to buy with a single click, only to decide not to buy anything?
So, for what objective reason do I really need this device?
To check the time.
And also to jot down ideas as they come to me, as a writer. Because on my smartphone—and this is why I can’t bring myself to give it up—listen up: there’s a note-taking app.
So I have a year to come to terms with the slow and painful realization that my colorful smartphone is less useful than a watch and a pack of Post-its.
Between saying it and doing it, it might not be such a big ocean after all.
So, come with me, watch me tell people, “Oh no, I don’t have a cell phone anymore—no, really, I swear, I’m not joking—but how do you handle the bank your family Uber Google Maps?”
It’s thanks to you that I’ll make it happen.
Because we’re all going to row together in the same direction, and that way, we’ll reach gentle, peaceful shores—serene and lush with greenery.
One year to the day.
And the ship sails on.
Translated by DeepL.com and her author