Elle: Disconnected-A month without my Smartphone.

​I feel like crap. I got a cold suddenly and have been hostage to the comfort of my bed for the better part of 36 hours. I’ve slept, Netflix binged, talked to my Mom for an hour and a half straight, surfed the web and social media gorged. ​

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The almost universal sign of a sick person's bedside table

In my effort to convalesce, I made a hot toddy two nights in a row to “sweat it out” (whatever ‘it’ is) and I have to admit; the toddies WORKED. Well, almost. Still feeling crappy, but less so. It’s amazing what the body can do with time. It’s also amazing that during that time, my mind was heavily preoccupied with the need to stay connected to the outside world. I mean, I obviously couldn’t go out while sick, but at the very least I could stay current. In the middle of texting someone,  a thought hit me: What am I doing? STOP! Sure, there wasn’t really much I could do as I try to recuperate as quickly as I could to get back to “normal” life; but should I be doing this? I was feverishly typing on a glass screen that has all the technology that I don’t understand underneath it which is communicating with networks and WiFi to send words to another person miles away.  That moment was when I realized that I needed to TRULY disconnect. So that’s what I am planning to do. 

For the next month, I will be putting down my smartphone and traveling back to a time that was much simpler. To a time where the future is now, but a distant dream for billions of people in the past. The promise of a time where the Jetson would actually become the Johnsons and the Smiths and whatever your surname is. To a time where the freedom many of us sought to advance our lives has actually added an intoxicating cocktail of convenience and confusion. 

This isn’t the first time that I’ve had the desire to disconnect. I did it about eight or nine years ago. I got a prepaid phone with basic functions and found that I could function quite well. But that was also when tech was on the precipice of advancement.  Now, our society is quickly catching up to the science fiction stories of the past. In the grand scheme of things, the time of more simplistic communication through devices was not that long ago.

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My first pager, which came from Radio Shack. Remember them?

I had a pager my senior year in high school and BOY,OH BOY, you couldn’t tell me anything! My bill was $10.95 a month and I looked forward to the dot matrix-esq words to pop up on the screen that said “HELLO”, “911” or when people contacted me with the message of “BOOBS” in an effort at mindless humor. I graduated to my first Ericsson phone my freshman year in college and the sky was the limit at the edge of tech when I started selling mobile phone just 2 years later. 

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What my first phone looked like.

So, here I am.

Here we all are. Living, breathing, sleeping, sexing, grieving, loving, hating and longing for technology. I have been toiling with transitioning to a minimalist lifestyle and I figured what better way to give it a go than to start off by ditching my smartphone. Here’s how all of this is going to work:

                                      THE RULES

1. No Smartphone of any type- No apps. That means no Google. No web browsing, no navigation, no social media, etc. at my fingertips. Yes, that’s right. NONE.
2. Text, but no email.
3.  I can only use whatever functions or applications that are built into the basic phone. No add ons.​
4.  I will only use my iPad, laptop or desktop to access the internet and only for the     purpose for looking up information/research, paying bills, maps for travel, email   and of course to post to my blog or podcast.
5. Listening to Music-Cd, radio or my ipod nano (which would be today's equivalent of a Walkman or old school MP3 player that would have been available 10-15 years ago.) That’s right, no streaming from music apps. (Oh, my sweet, dear,  old friend, Spotify. See you on the other side)

I don’t profess to know how I will handle disconnecting. To be honest, for me that’s the point. That's what will make this a challenge. I have had my fair share of struggles,  but I don't anticipate disconnecting for my smartphone to be on my list of great struggles. I would like to think that my life is not that shallow and superficial. I believe that there is more substance to my ability to adapt and live without something that is profoundly invasive yet comforting at the same time. It’s bizarre how technology has created an amalgamation of the best and worst parts of ourselves and humanity as a whole. I’m ready. I’m actually excited about the challenge and I would love for all of you to join me on this journey. Please stay tuned through my blog and my podcast as this journey unfolds. Day one is coming soon!

Are you ready?


Let’s go.