I gave up my smartphone for Lent. Four months later, I haven't looked back
Guest Newsletter by Ciara McLaren
On March 5, I turned off my iPhone SE and shoved it to the back of a cluttered drawer. In its place, I turned on a Nokia 2780: a dumbphone with a numeric keypad and basic internet capabilities. My goal was to stick with the dumbed-down device for Lent. Now, Easter has come and gone. Spring has turned into summer. Four months later, I still haven’t switched back to my smartphone and I’m not sure I ever will.
As a card-carrying member of Gen Z, I’ve been online almost as long as I can remember. I’ve owned some sort of personal smart device for over 15 uninterrupted years. So this was the first break from the longest relationship I’ve ever had.
In the beginning, I wasn’t sure I could actually manage it. The urge to use my phone was so constant, so strong. Every time I made a cup of tea, took a break from work, or, yes, used the bathroom, I wanted – needed – to pull out my phone. If I managed to forget about it for a while, I would feel a phantom buzz, as if my soul itself was receiving a notification.
Aside from that, I had practical concerns. How would I navigate to unfamiliar places? Would I miss something important on WhatsApp, or Teams, or Gmail? What if I forgot my credit card at home? The truth is, it was hard at first. I did forget my credit card at home, several times. It took a while for my friends to remember to text or call instead of WhatsApp. I never did make it to one particular trailhead. My smartphone had made my life really easy – so easy that I forgot how to live without it.
As convenient as smartphones are, we somehow managed to live for millennia without them. And eventually, like generations before me, I figured it out. I slowly rediscovered the skills I’d let atrophy: navigating, remembering, paying attention. Driving around town, Mapquest-style directions sitting in the cupholder, $20 bill stuffed in my pocket; I felt perfectly independent and free.
And the urge to scroll? It disappeared quicker than I thought it would. Those nicotine-like withdrawals were finished within the first week. After that, I got bored, felt lazy, craved fun – sure. But I found other ways to fill the hours. Collage nights with friends. Picnics in the park. Elaborate baking projects. In other words, all the stuff people did before smartphones.
There were other changes, too; ones that took me by surprise. I stopped caring about my appearance as much. Without a front-facing camera at the ready, I saw my own face less. Without a feed in my pocket, I had no facetuned faces to compare it to. There is plenty of research on the link between social media and self-image, and my experience backs that.
That lack of self-consciousness extended to more than my appearance. Have you ever received – or sent – a really short, cryptic text? Something like “Lmk wat time pick up- i’m on mtn. Forr jo 8pm good time?” That’s just how you text on a numeric keypad. It takes way too long to text any other way. Agonizing over punctuation (is a period too abrupt?) or the right emoji (does the flower seem passive-aggressive?) is not an option. For the first time in my life, I was a good texter: always answering, even if I was typing like my dad.
