As I
was strapping the baby into her carseat a couple months ago, I put my
iPhone on top of the car. Then I drove off. My phone, well... I've imagined it in a ditch, in the clutches of some teenaged boys, and in shards, crunched by a semi in the middle of A1A.
All of those are possibilities.
I had my "LIFE" in that phone! (...Or did I???)
Notice what came next. It surprised me;
Like a technologically naive grandmother, I could spread my wings and soar under the cellular radar, to a land where no calls nor texts could touch me. Like a lone mama wolf, I could curl up with my pup, tucked away in our reclusive den, without electromagnetic radiation clouding our cuddle. I seriously considered not buying a replacement. I'll get a landline, I said. It'll be old school. Yeah. I'll be plugged into the DIRT.
Freedom.
Like a technologically naive grandmother, I could spread my wings and soar under the cellular radar, to a land where no calls nor texts could touch me. Like a lone mama wolf, I could curl up with my pup, tucked away in our reclusive den, without electromagnetic radiation clouding our cuddle. I seriously considered not buying a replacement. I'll get a landline, I said. It'll be old school. Yeah. I'll be plugged into the DIRT.
But alas, I eventually caved.
Any silly guilt aside, this got me thinking about addiction. I am a cell phone addict. iPhones ARE the new cigarettes. Just reach down and get one out of your pocket, light it up, and tune out the world around you.
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| They need to add a cellphone to this |
Short story: Harvard Rats were put into three groups. One group pressed a bar and got a treat every time. The second group pressed a bar BUT only got a treat sometimes--and it was RANDOM. The third group got squat. Guess which group was all cracked out, pressing the bar nonstop? The second group. Our phones are the levers that RANDOMLY give out treats. You might check your email five times in an hour and only get an email ONE of those times. But that's enough--that random positive feedback conditions you to keep checking. Obsessively. All. Day. Long.
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| Must. Keep. Refreshing. |
Ding!
Now we hear other people's phones going off wherever we are and are sent into a Pavlovian hunger to check our own. Was that for me?
All this cell phone business is keeping our minds active and chatty. (Not to mention feeling the slow burn of electromagnetic radiation)
All this cell phone business is keeping our minds active and chatty. (Not to mention feeling the slow burn of electromagnetic radiation)
Andrew Weil turns his phone off every day at 4. Do you have the guts to try that? Set the boundary and see how it feels, even if you just try it for a week. Anxiety at first is normal. Freedom might be just around the corner.
Ill sign off for now with a couple laughs, thanks to comic genius, Louis CK. * And by the way, if you are gonna put your cellphone next to your pillow at night, keep it on airplane mode!!!
