Going A Whole Week With No Phone

A little over a week ago--I dropped my phone and it completely shattered in my driveway. So badly that not even the Wifi or Bluetooth would function any longer. So--I contacted our carrier--went thru the process with insurance--and waited. Fortunately we have laptops at home so I wasn't completely disconnected over the course of the week it took to ship me a replacement and get the new one all set up. I was still able to check email and Facebook and Instagram in the evenings while sitting on the couch watching tv with my family--but it wasn't as convenient.

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You never really realize exactly how much you look at your device on a daily basis--until you're without said device! Driving in my car--I was disconnected from the world. Felt like it was my entire life all over again up til the late 90's. How did we get by back then without being so accessible and connected?

It's crazy--I couldn't talk to my wife, Siri wasn't reading me texts in the car, couldn't just grab the phone and check email--had to boot up a laptop, open a browser and sign-in--which seemingly took forever (and truly sooo much faster than even the initial days of "You've Got Mail" and AOL)... Kids of today will never understand the struggle of dial-up internet and how everyone at the house needed to stay off the phone so you could get on. Just the same way they'll never know the pain of texting when it was new and having to "click" keys on the phone multiple times to get to the letters you wanted to form a word.

It was certainly an eye opening experience to be "off the grid", so to speak--for so long. And if I'm being completely honest--it wasn't all that bad. While I missed some aspects, I also enjoyed cutting the electronic leash for a bit. Try it some time. You might enjoy it a  little too!