Escaping the (phone) cell

Escaping the (phone) cell

A friend recently asked what was the most life-changing innovation of the last 20-25 years. Several answered ‘the cell phone”.

It’s an amazing device. My cell phone cost 1/20^th of the cost of my first computer but has immeasurably more capability (and fits in my pocket). With a push of my finger on the fingerprint pad, I’m ‘in’. Another click or two and the world is my oyster as I access websites, download boarding passes and movie tickets, correspond with global friends, access anything on my computer and more.

However, it’s amazing nature conceals a dark side. It’s addictive! I’ve never tried crack, but figure that a cell phone can hook you in just as effectively. Are you sitting in a dull meeting – then use your phone to check into the world. Is the church service going too long – under the cover of accessing a phone Bible, have a look at Facebook or next week’s diary. And so it goes. As someone says, with a cell phone you can be present everywhere but where you are and with everyone but the person next to you.

There’s another dark side. A cell phone can change our internal wiring. The immediacy of smartphone multi-tasking breeds a fidgety spirit in which we become incapable of focussing on one task at a time and for an extended time even if we are nowhere near our phone.

What to do? One solution is to ditch the cell phone and go back to an old analogue phone. Or lock your cell phone in another place at times. Or turn it off. Or throw it in a bucket of water.

Here’s a few more practical thoughts on overcoming the addiction:

• Put the phone to silent or aeroplane mode when driving, talking with someone, at a meeting and especially when you go to bed (how many us see the phone screen last thing when we sleep and first thing when we wake?)
• Go on a phone-fast, just as you may fast from other permissible things in order to foster self-discipline or to make space for other things. Start small, say half an hour, then build it up.

What about the fidgety distractedness that makes us restless even when our phone is not at hand?

Here we can turn the cell phone back on itself. Choose a task (just one) that you want to focus on for a set period of time. Turn your phone to silent (or plane mode) and set the phone timer to your chosen period. Don’t get up and wander about; or pick up something else, or do anything else but the chosen task until the timer beeps. Then give yourself a break to walk about, check what needs to be checked and then repeat. and repeat and repeat until undistracted focus on a single task becomes a skill recovered. This can be realy hard at first and then become liberating!

Little steps like this can stop the cell phone becoming an entrapping cell and instead be the amazing device that it really is.

Must go … my timer beeps!