4 hours without a smartphone. A stupid post on a serious topic

How many times a day do you pick up your smartphone? Are you a stern, stoic developer with a Spartan button model or a nervous PR woman who is online 24/7? I always thought that I was more of an ascetic who actively uses a smartphone, but can switch to a push-button model at any time. Although you can not refuse me some addiction to unusual phones: among my favorites were Samsung QWERTY smartphones and as many as three Nokia E63s - the last one I bought when my colleagues already had the fourth iPhone. But the world went on and for three years now I have had an iPhone SE - the same, compact, legendary, cool. And everything would be fine if not for a couple of breakdowns: the battery stopped holding and the Power button broke. After inconvenience for a couple of weeks, I sent it in for repair.



- We'll return it in three hours, - the master issued a receipt. I went out into the city. No. Another person went to another city.





Crying Yaroslavna Borisych



I stood in perplexity on the street and first of all decided to check the time - but there was no smartphone. I don't have a sports watch, and for a long time I've only worn a mechanical watch on holidays. I found a receipt for repairs, looked at the time of leaving the workshop, decided to call the manager "for a chat" - but ... there was no smartphone. It's good that I asked for time off in advance. Well, the city and I have not seen each other since the beginning of self-isolation, I went to shy away in the center.



Literally every ten minutes, my hand began to rummage in my pocket - I needed to check my mail, work chats, friendly chat and the status of the order on Ozon. At some point, while standing on the embankment, I remembered that I needed to do something on the company's website. I used to easily go to my desk using RDP and do these things from anywhere. But no, not now. It was nervous.



However, a new sensation also came: I admired the views, flower beds, signboards, funny cars, the sky with clouds, the river, and did not climb behind my smartphone to replenish my collection of 2700 photographs. At first, a prickly regret rolled over that I would not photograph this next beauty, and then I felt how pleasant it is to observe something with my eyes and focus on this something, and not look at the world through the camera. It was a real discovery, equal in power to children's delight. 



I went to the store to buy water, took a bottle, dragged it to the checkout. At the checkout, I reached for my smartphone to pay with Apple Pay ... Oops. After a break from my backpack, I found a card, then I remembered that I only have 93 rubles on my main account, the rest I scattered over others through a mobile bank. It was enough for water, but going shopping for food for dinner at these hours did not work out. I used to "credit" myself from my other accounts in order to organize my finances. Without a mobile bank, I walked around, drank water and took the rest on the tram. 



After two hours I got bored, I went quite far from the service (steps and kilometers cannot be measured - guess why), but this is almost a whole avenue. My legs were buzzing terribly, my back began to stretch, and I decided to call Yandex.Taxi, as always. Again the hand reached into his pocket. Instead of a taxi, the same tram came in handy, for which, just in case, the last rubles were saved. Anxiety about work mail, chats and the ticket system grew to the level of trembling, although I knew for sure that my colleague had replaced me and that you could be 3000% sure of him.



And now - they gave me my iPhone in perfect order. No, I got my old life back. I left the service, sat on the curb, called a taxi to my house, exhaled and went to work right there, my brain exhaled, because it was also tired of perceiving and remembering the world around me. 



Why are these pink snot?



The world of wireless technology has entangled us, no matter how paradoxical it may sound. Most of us are addicted to our mobile devices. And I see this as a serious threat.



  • The development of memory is inhibited. Why do I need to remember something, if I have all the working documentation in the cloud, all the normative tables, phone numbers, call logs - you can refer to this at any time. If you forget, calendars and task managers will remind you. 
  • Decreased speaking skills. I often have to be a speaker at events of different levels and I noticed that it is much more pleasant for me and my colleagues and partners from conferences, more humorous and free to communicate in messengers. Looking into each other's eyes, we lose the thread of communication, and sometimes we don't even find a topic for conversation, physical communication looks broken. 
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And this all concerns us adults. Constant contact of children with gadgets is inevitable, but at the same time, you need to understand that it will give rise to a new type of people who do not even fit into the framework of our understanding. And you know what - I will not speak with slogans about sports, books, friendship, joy of travel, etc. What we have is already inevitable. But I want to encourage you, along with the use of gadgets, to develop imagination, memory, visual perception and support this. Otherwise, we can get irreversible brain changes much earlier than the official visit of Alzheimer's grandfather and his companion dementia. Let's remember more, think and, yes, read more. This will save our brain, which manages to get tired of not having a smartphone just as it would get tired of the most extreme, stressful situation. Open your palms.



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