Tuesday:
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As I was writing my name on the pink post-it and wrapping the rubber band around my phone, I felt a sense of anxiety and excitement in my stomach. I wasn’t really sure what to expect but already my mind was racing with all the things i’d be missing for the next few days. My snap streak is at stake with my boyfriend and I was worried about missing any new tweets, snap stories or instagram posts from my friends. It sounds pathetic but it’s true. Immediately as I walked out of the room and down the escalator, a girl in my class and I exchanged thoughts about this little experiment we participated in, we were both smiling uneasily, having some idea of what we were putting ourselves up against. It almost sounds like i’m talking about the beginning of some battle but really I was just worried about what it’d be like being phoneless in the city.
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Because I didn’t have my phone I paid more attention in psych and philosophy class, my phone just wasn’t on my mind.
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taking the brown line to washington/wells, I sat there and usually i’d put some music on and plug in my headphones but I couldn’t. so I sat there and stared at the people around me and outside the window. I realized that the 10 other people on that train were all sitting on their phones, it was either in their hand or they were listening to music. This one guy was sitting like I was and just staring out the window and for a second I was like oh wow, finally someone that doesn’t feel the need to be on their phone, and then like two minutes later he pulls out his cellphone from his backpack. all hope lost.
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As I was walking back to ogil vie to go home, there was an incredibly beautiful sunset outside and I mean, it was absolutely breathtaking. It was a pink and purple I had never seen before and the clouds were so big and scattered! Of course my initial reaction was to take a picture, but i couldn’t 🙁 I actually got kind of frustrated because i thought to myself, the one frickin day that I don’t have my phone, I have to miss out on this beautiful sunset! I continued walking grumply to the station.
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On the train, I found my seat on the top level and looked around as more people plugged in headphones and stared at their telephones, tablets, and laptops. I kinda just sat there like, what to do… what to do… I had remembered that I brought my newspaper with to class that day so I took it out and started reading other articles in the Op-Ed section. One was an interesting one about how basically sitting still all day is leading us to our early death bed, and another intriguing one was about how scientists were trying to bring our brains back to life after death. Pretty intense. I started to doze off as it was getting late and my train ride would talk about 35 min home. I got off and my mom knew what time to pick me up because I told her earlier that day before I handed in my phone, but as I stepped off, I realized I forgot to tell her where she should meet me! so now I had to walk around and hope I wouldn’t miss my mom’s car. downtown arlington is pretty big so I was in a debacle. I figured i’d walk to the starbucks because that’s usually where I tell my dad to get me and lucky enough they were both waiting for me near there. My dad said he figured, when in doubt, just wait by starbucks for me! I’m glad our thoughts clicked because it was already 7 and i had been in classes since 10:10 that morning and I was hungry, tired, and cold.
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when I came home, I ate and then sat on my laptop and imessaged my boyfriend after his wrestling practice. It was hard not being able to talk to him considering he goes to North Central so I don’t really get to see him whenever.
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I went to bed pretty early because there was nothing else to do, I didn’t feel like watching tv and I was kind of tired. A weird feeling came over me as I realized that I wouldn’t be putting my phone on charge and laying it next to me on my nightstand.
Wednesday
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I dont have school on wednesdays so I just stay home and do some homework and chauffeur my two younger siblings around, so because I didn’t have my phone I found that I was super productive that morning. I cleaned the entire house and did it very quickly because I didn’t have any distractions.
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every time I left the house that day i’d freeze for a second as I walked out because I was like oh, i forgot my phone, and then i’d be like shoot, right… i don’t have it. and i’d continue walking to the car.
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I know it’s bad to say this, but I am guilty of texting and driving and snapping and driving sometimes lol, but it actually felt good to literally be free of any distractions while I drove around
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My mom came home that night with a rental car because she took hers to get detailed and they gave her the same car back, it was an audi Q7 but it was blue!!!!!! The car looked so cool and there I was wanting to take a picture of it again and i couldn’t…
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my mom asked me how i was doing without my phone and surprisingly, self reflecting in that moment, It didn’t seem like such a big deal to me. like i wasn’t dying of ultimate boredom and withdrawal. it definitely got me focused on some more important things that day and considering I had a midterm essay to complete, I definitely was less distracted.
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I got into bed that night and after getting comfortable I realized I didn’t have an alarm for the next day because my phone wasn’t there, so I had to get up and fix the ancient digital clock on my dresser.
Thursday:
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The train ride sucked. I just wanted to listen to music but i couldn’t. I also had no clue what the time was at all. As I got off the train and walked to the brown line, I realized that there really aren’t that many clocks around anywhere. I looked down at my wrist and was mad that I didn’t decide to wear a watch that day.
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I was literally so desperate that I wanted to plug in my headphones to my laptop in my backpack but I knew I couldn’t get any wifi walking around, plus when my laptops closed, I wouldn’t be able to play any music anyway.
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I kind of got mixed feelings about the whole experiment. At times I missed it only because I heavily relied on it and other times I had completely forgotten all about it and felt completely free of all obligations.
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When I had entered the SAC, I had this spark of excitement come over me because I had realized that I was in the same building as my phone. LOL