With no malice intended, it is always great fun to point out the slip-ups of your nearest and dearest ones. They too are supposed to know that you have their best interests at heart. Having said that, I feel my disclaimer is strong enough to protect myself and lay the ground for the stories to follow.
Twinning in action and attire
The morning after we attended a wedding, a photo landed on my phone from a friend. The two men featured were the father-son duo in the middle of a flight of stairs, totally engrossed in their phones. To be honest, the sight of the two of them standing in their black suits and doing the same thing looked rather cute.
The older one was the first to justify the act when I showed them the photo: “Actually I was being asked to look at a piece of news”. It didn’t matter to me what he said. Who has to check any news for that matter at a wedding? The picture was already circulated among close friends and relatives!
Someone goes on a treasure hunt!
I played a prank on the younger man of the house by hiding his phone. When he discovered that it was missing, he literally went restless searching for it all over the house. I too enjoyed sending him on a wild goose chase, suggesting places where he might have left it. It was too much for him to stay away from his most prized possession.
To cut him some slack, he is not the only one who would behave that way. Most of us are so attached to our phones these days that it feels as though life would come to a standstill minus that instrument.
Familiar scenes unfolding in everyday life
If you’ve looked around and observed minutely, it is a familiar sight in restaurants: Families coming for a meal are seated at their tables, but each person is glued to his or her screen. You may also see one person in that group who is phone-free and looking very frustrated or ignored because the rest are busy with themselves. There is a possibility that this same scene is repeated in their homes. Now they have come out to spend some time with each other, yet they are not actually together.
The truth always hurts!
Someone in your family may be paying the least or zero attention to what you are saying due to being engaged on the phone. But if that person is called out, the reaction is not an acknowledgment of the mistake. Rather it’s the time to go on defense mode with statements like “I was reading something important”, or “I hardly look at my phone, and I am being picked on.”
Well, it is better to remember that we are humans and respect the saying: “To err is human, to forgive, divine”. We can pardon the guilty who are genuinely nice souls. The offense, after all, is not that big, but on a positive note, let us all strive to disconnect a bit from our phones.
Embracing February in a different way
Co-founded by Cyril Roman and Jacob Wann, Global Solidarity Foundation is a non-profit organization that seeks to promote climate justice, sustainability, and positive changes in global communities and ecosystems around the world. A brain child of theirs is Phone-Free February, a unique initiative to promote healthier use of smartphones. It is a global campaign to challenge citizens to stay away from their phones for the month of February.
Shocked, angry, insecure? Relax! It is not something that cannot be done because we have our choices.
The organization website beautifully puts it, “Renegotiate your relationship with your phone!” There are two options through which one can be a part of this campaign. One option, PhoneFlex, asks participants to use their smartphones mindfully, only when needed, and to spend as little time as possible staring at that screen. They are expected to drastically reduce digital time.
PhoneFree is more challenging because it wants people to keep their phones stored in a box for all 28 days of February. Logically speaking, it is not practical to disassociate yourself completely from your smartphone for an entire month because many people need their phones for work and running essential day-to-day chores. Also, with landlines almost dying out, smartphones are the medium through which most people are contacted. PhoneFlex is worth a try. It would be a good test of will power and determination.
Exploring creative options
If you are wondering what you can do without your phone tucked to your heart all the time, there is plenty that you can achieve. Here are just a few of the innumerable things we can do:
- Develop a hobby that will sharpen our minds.
- Pick up skills that will help us on the professional front. This is time used productively.
- Enjoy time with family. We may not have given them enough time because our constant companion was the smartphone.
- Spend some time amidst nature. This is such pure relaxation.
- Get in some exercise, if you have not, to keep yourself fit and hearty.
- Not spending unlimited time on the smartphone will help to catch up on sleep that has been lost earlier.
It is such a healthy initiative that Global Solidarity Foundation has presented to the world. We do not need to enroll officially in a program to create an ambience to restrict our screen time. We can take the challenge ourselves too.
It is wiser to take one baby-step at a time. So rather than taking the whole year at one go, first let us think about February to pave the way for many more PhoneFlex months! I believe we can all still keep breathing sans the smartphone next to us all the time!
rashmi writes 