Art life without a phone
>> Sunday, May 22, 2016
I grew up with a two pence piece in my pocket. There was a phone box always within an easy walk and you used it to say 'I'll be late home', that was all.
When I was in my early twenties I got my first mobile. I played snake for hours.
I don't really recall my progression of mobiles that slowly did more and more but now the phone in my hand (rarely my pocket) is an extension of my brain. An integral part of my life:
A quick messaging system (everything must be said immediately)
A navigation system (no more studying maps before hand or carrying an a-z)
My notebook (no need to remember anything)
My calendar (no need to remember dates)
My phone book (no need to remember numbers - I still know my friends phone numbers from houses they lived in 40 years ago but no idea what my husbands phone number is now!)
My social media ball and chain (if I didn't post about it, did it really happen?)
My games system
My music
My books
My exercise tracker (I didn't even think about tracking it years ago)
My camera
Oh, and a phone.
I can't imagine life without it. I'm addicted to it. It has reduced my attention span to that of a gnat and flattened my real time social skills.
Recently my mind had been so preoccupied with Cog I'm finding I'm not firing on all cylinders.
I was off to London, rushing from a 'please eat', hour longer than it should have been, mealtime to the station. I threw my phone on the car seat whilst I put my jacket on and started to talk to my travel companion.
On the train conversation finally took its first pause and, as you do in any 2 second silence, I reached for my phone.....ahhhh shit, car seat.
So I'm on the way to London sans tube app, sans street map, sans social media (OMG Hun!) and sans camera.
Travel companion had an old Nokia, the ones that can make calls and text if you can arsed pressing a number key 25 times for any given letter. So I call HWMBO to say yes, I have gone to London with another man, no I'm not contactable and by the way would you mind doing an extra 15 miles on your way home from work to rescue my phone from imminent window smash and grabbing. He's a good egg sometimes!
So I was forced to look out of the train window but I found myself coverting the extensive i-collection of the couple opposite me. I watched them grappling to get the paid wifi to work, which appeased me slightly!
We read a wall map in the tube station (oh the shame.)
I was escorted to the vip lounge in the Royal Academy where I hobbed with the nobs. I'm not sure it even really happened as I can't show you any pictures!
I ummed and ahhed over the paintings. The cheap ones (for 4 figures) and the not so cheap ones (for 5+ figures) deciding which one I was definitely not going to buy!! Travel companion is very sweet and treats my total art ignorance with kindly patience.
I watched the art world tap their highs and lows into their phones and I ached with the absense of my phone.
During our delightful meal, when travel companion left the table for a while, I studied the architecture around me and watched the beautiful patterns of golden light flicker through the glass onto warm brick. In my head I cropped the photo and picked a filter.
On the train back I couldn't message the train company to congratulate them on amazing customer service for a poor girl that was on the wrong 'last train' and the stopping of the non stop train at a station with trains still running so she could get home.
Nor could I text home to say 'on my way home'.
Travel companion and I continued to chat away to each other, not to strangers down our electronic devices, and I was feeling so 1970s. Although I found myself regularly unable to remember facts or information and saying 'damn, now if I had my phone.'
I finally got home (HWMBO had even moved my car to the platform steps and pointed it towards the car park exit for me - bless him) I congratulated myself for surviving without my life at the end of my arm and immediately up dated every status going to tell the world of strangers how fantastic I was for 'going phone naked' like it was a positive action done consciously to to enrich my life and give the rest of the phone addicted pack a pang of envy!
Life without a phone - imagine....oh the humanity!
My calendar (no need to remember dates)
My phone book (no need to remember numbers - I still know my friends phone numbers from houses they lived in 40 years ago but no idea what my husbands phone number is now!)
My social media ball and chain (if I didn't post about it, did it really happen?)
My games system
My music
My books
My exercise tracker (I didn't even think about tracking it years ago)
My camera
Oh, and a phone.
I can't imagine life without it. I'm addicted to it. It has reduced my attention span to that of a gnat and flattened my real time social skills.
Recently my mind had been so preoccupied with Cog I'm finding I'm not firing on all cylinders.
I was off to London, rushing from a 'please eat', hour longer than it should have been, mealtime to the station. I threw my phone on the car seat whilst I put my jacket on and started to talk to my travel companion.
On the train conversation finally took its first pause and, as you do in any 2 second silence, I reached for my phone.....ahhhh shit, car seat.
So I'm on the way to London sans tube app, sans street map, sans social media (OMG Hun!) and sans camera.
Travel companion had an old Nokia, the ones that can make calls and text if you can arsed pressing a number key 25 times for any given letter. So I call HWMBO to say yes, I have gone to London with another man, no I'm not contactable and by the way would you mind doing an extra 15 miles on your way home from work to rescue my phone from imminent window smash and grabbing. He's a good egg sometimes!
So I was forced to look out of the train window but I found myself coverting the extensive i-collection of the couple opposite me. I watched them grappling to get the paid wifi to work, which appeased me slightly!
We read a wall map in the tube station (oh the shame.)
I was escorted to the vip lounge in the Royal Academy where I hobbed with the nobs. I'm not sure it even really happened as I can't show you any pictures!
I ummed and ahhed over the paintings. The cheap ones (for 4 figures) and the not so cheap ones (for 5+ figures) deciding which one I was definitely not going to buy!! Travel companion is very sweet and treats my total art ignorance with kindly patience.
I watched the art world tap their highs and lows into their phones and I ached with the absense of my phone.
During our delightful meal, when travel companion left the table for a while, I studied the architecture around me and watched the beautiful patterns of golden light flicker through the glass onto warm brick. In my head I cropped the photo and picked a filter.
On the train back I couldn't message the train company to congratulate them on amazing customer service for a poor girl that was on the wrong 'last train' and the stopping of the non stop train at a station with trains still running so she could get home.
Nor could I text home to say 'on my way home'.
Travel companion and I continued to chat away to each other, not to strangers down our electronic devices, and I was feeling so 1970s. Although I found myself regularly unable to remember facts or information and saying 'damn, now if I had my phone.'
I finally got home (HWMBO had even moved my car to the platform steps and pointed it towards the car park exit for me - bless him) I congratulated myself for surviving without my life at the end of my arm and immediately up dated every status going to tell the world of strangers how fantastic I was for 'going phone naked' like it was a positive action done consciously to to enrich my life and give the rest of the phone addicted pack a pang of envy!
Life without a phone - imagine....oh the humanity!
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