Truth is I cannot last without my phone, though for some days now, we have been having electricity issues, so I go plug my phone at a charging center, highest I have left my phone there is for about 4 hours, that's the highest time ever, My phone is one thing that I use always, I am sure that if something goes wrong with my phone, I will seriously be down.
And see ehn, just saying this out loud like this makes me realize just how deep this dependency actually goes, see now, it is not even just about calls or texting anymore, my phone is basically my whole life condensed into one small device, my writing, my content, my connection to the world, my bank apps, even my sense of what is happening outside my own four walls, all of it lives inside that one screen, so its like this, when I imagine going hours without it, it genuinely feels like losing access to a part of myself, not just losing a gadget.
Those four hours at the charging center are honestly some of the most restless hours I have had in a while,I remember constantly wondering what notifications I was missing, what comments were piling up, whether someone important was trying to reach me. It is almost like this invisible anxiety creeps in the moment my phone is out of reach, like my brain refuses to just settle into the present moment without it, sometimes I succumb to sleep, and sometimes I have to interact with people that are at home, hehe...
See ehn, what is even more interesting to me is realizing how much of my day actually revolves around checking my phone without even thinking about it. I wake up, phone, waiting for something, phone, bored for even two minutes, phone, like this, It has become this automatic reflex rather than an actual choice, and if I am being fully honest with myself, that says a lot about how much control this device has over my daily rhythm.
I think what makes it worse is that my phone is not just entertainment for me, it is tied to my work too, as someone who writes constantly, who has to stay engaged with prompts, with my blog, with my social media, stepping away from my phone almost feels like stepping away from my responsibilities in a way, even if that is not entirely true, there is this kind of pressure, self created most of the time, that tells me I need to always be reachable, always be posting, always be present online, otherwise I am somehow falling behind.
But this electricity issues we have been having lately have honestly forced me to confront this dependency a little more than I would have on my own... And now watching my phone die and knowing I have to leave it somewhere else for hours, completely out of my control, has been uncomfortable in a way that taught me something about myself, yes it showed me just how much I have wired my sense of safety and normalcy around having that device physically close to me at all times.
I will not pretend I am about to become one of those people who goes on a whole digital detox journey anytime soon, because realistically, my phone is tied into too much of my daily function for that right now, but I do think this whole situation has made me a little more aware, a little more willing to sit with the discomfort of not having it glued to my hand every single second.
So yeah,.... I think dependency like this does sneaks up on you slowly until moments like these, forced breaks you did not choose, reveal just how attached you have become, and to be honest, four hours away from my phone taught me more about myself than I expected it to. ***
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