Digital Detox: Day 1

Wednesday, Dec 9, 2014:
"Ya know...." said Dusty, who had just helped me upgrade from my old iPhone 5, "Sometimes I wish I could do what you're doing right now, but...."

Pause.  Rewind the tape.  About three or four years.

I got my first smartphone sometime around 2010, when I took advantage of my upgrade to get an iPhone 3GS.  I usually take the plunge into new technologies later than most people in my generation, and this was no different.  Despite knowing that I would have many more capabilities available to me, I was still surprised when I found out the range of things my new device could do.  Much different from my LG slider, I was excited about how my new device would simplify everything and act as my own personal secretary.  It would keep everything in order, it would assist me in coordinating and corresponding with everyone and everything that had previously cluttered my to-do lists and calendar.  I would be a smooth, well-oiled emailing and googling machine.  It was just so easy.  I was excited about my new change.

I wasn't the only one who noticed the change.  My wife, Heidi, observed in less than a month that my new toy wasn't just tidying up my life and keeping me coordinated; it was consuming me.  At the time I was denying it.  I didn't want to admit it, because... well, I liked my phone.  I also liked the leisure of some of the other apps and games I'd tripped and fallen on;  Words with Friends, racing games, sports games, fantasy sports apps, you name it.

As the weeks and months went on, the conversations were more and more repetitive.  She began to tell me she was tired of playing second fiddle to my phone.  I would assure her that that is absurd.  I mean, obviously I love my wife more than this dumb little phone, right?

Were my actions reflecting that?

For a couple years, I enjoyed the 3GS without any issues, the phone worked fine.  Every few weeks or so my wife would again make the annoying observation that I had shut myself out of a conversation with some friends or some family members because of my phone.  This annoyed me to no end.  Who was she to tell me that my phone had somehow taken precedence over people?  Why wouldn't she just leave me alone?

It was starting to affect my spiritual life.  With all of its feed-me-now gratification, I found little or no time to spare for reflection or meditation.

My nights got longer.  Bedtime got later.  Phone plugged in on my nightstand, it was the first thing I'd reach for when I awoke.  Not my Bible, not my wife.  When my infant daughter would awaken me in the middle of the night, I would comfort her, and then check Facebook, because it was there.  It was just so easy.

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Fast forward to 2012, I upgraded again to the iPhone 5, because, well, I was due for an upgrade and that's what you do when you are due for an upgrade.  You have to take your phone in and get a new one, right?  No matter the fact that my 3GS was in great condition, working fine, I still dropped $200 on an upgrade to the 5, just because.

$200 for a phone with only some minor improvements.  I added FaceTime, which I used about once a month.  Probably the biggest difference was that I now had Siri.  She makes texting a lot easier.  Easy enough to do it anywhere, at the desk, on the sidewalk, or on the interstate.

Slowly my phone became more of an accessory behind the wheel.  Not when Heidi or anyone else was in the car, mind you;  I wouldn't want to subject myself to the ridicule.  But when I was in the car by myself, I didn't mind having the phone out so I could take care of correspondence that I couldn't otherwise do at work or at home.

It because easier and more natural with each passing day.  I have to preface this with what Paul writes in 2nd Corinthians (clicky here) because I am not proud of what I am about to admit.  But this is Christ's power in me, so I must boast in what He has done.  Texting through Siri evolved into email, Facebook, and even games.  Yes, I said games.  While driving.  I distinctly remember the self-ridicule I could hear in the distance the day that I actually played a racing game on my iPhone while operating a real-life automobile on a public highway.

What if this is who I am?
What if this is what I love?
What if this is more about my worship than I care to think of?
    -Gary Driskell, "What If This Is Who I Am?"

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On a dark, overcast October 18 morning in 2013, I drove past an ambulance while on my way to work.  Then another.  And another.  With each passing responder, my heart sunk a little further.  It wasn't until later that morning that I discovered that those vehicles were heading to the site of the wreck that had killed the husband of one of my co-workers.  He was also the father to two kids at the elementary school where I work.

Alayna, age 9
Madelyn, age 5

Suddenly, without any warning, those two girls had hugged their dad for the last time on this earth.  Without any details about how the wreck had happened, I became guilt-stricken.  I knew that I had not caused the accident, but the thought dwelled in my mind that "that might as well have been me driving the other car."

And that is where things started to turn around for me and my phone.  Amazingly, I have never had an accident, not even a near-miss or almost-ran-off-the-road incident.  I learned this lesson through someone else's hardship.  I didn't immediately turn my back on my phone, but I started to see it for what it was.  A time-sucker and a ticking time bomb.  I started to think about the fact that any time I got behind the wheel could be my last.  Yet... even tearing away from it took over a year.

Heidi's frustrations with my phone never went away.  The tired out conversation about my phone recycled in our household.  But I no longer disagreed with her.  Nor did my now two-year-old daughter, who one night told me, "Daddy, put the phone away" while trying to get my attention one night.  My heart broke.  My most favorite person on the planet was losing an attention battle to my iPhone on a nightly basis.  What have I allowed to happen?  This is not who I want to be anymore!

I observed it more and more at the elementary school, too.  Not just with phones, but students' obsessions with video games, TV, movies...  The kids quite literally couldn't hold a conversation.  They couldn't look me in the eye.  Think that's limited to kids?  You're wrong.  I would "catch" other teachers scrolling on their cell phones while they waited for their classes to come out of the bathroom.... but then realize I am just as guilty.  Phone out in the classroom?  Like clockwork.  And there was a day or two in which I forgot my cell phone (either at home or in the car) and it just didn't feel the same.  Remember this moment in the movie Home Alone?  That's what it feels like.

Odds are you know that feeling.  What does it say to you that we're that dependent on these machines?  Machines that, until 20 years ago, NO ONE carried?

My heart began to turn against our culture's digital approach as I observed the general public more and more frequently and thought about where we are headed if we don't do something about this.  The girl leaning on her arm in the booth at the restaurant, staring down her boyfriend through his smartphone while he scrolled cluelessly, the quartet of pre-teen girls in line at a fast-food joint that didn't speak for over two minutes because every one of them preferred their device to actual human interaction.  The mom surfing away on her iPad, not noticing the fact that her 12-year-old is running roughshod in the toddler play-place at the mall like Marshawn Lynch at Pier One.  A former player of mine that I ran into at McDonald's in Oak Grove who waited patiently while his girlfriend quite literally did not look up from her phone over the course of 8 minutes while we waited in line.

I observed it more and more on the road, too.  Drivers at stoplights.  Cars going 15 miles under the speed limit and wandering off the road.  You can't even tell who's driving drunk anymore.

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Less than a week ago, I actually held my phone in one hand while tucking my daughter into bed with the other (I don't even remember what I had been doing prior to that, reading about football or something.  Doesn't matter.  But what happened next does).  Like a rush of wind, I felt a premonition.  It was 50-or-60-year-old me, yelling at 36-year-old me at the top of his... my... lungs.  "You idiot!  I would give anything... ANYTHING... to go back to being your age, and have those kids at ages 2 and six months.  You're throwing it all away!"

So, I did it.  On Wednesday, December 9, 2014, I walked into AT&T and told Dusty that I wanted to upgrade from my iPhone 5.  He was confused at first when I pointed at the flip phones and said "I want one of those."  But when I explained that I'm just tired of my phone and the baggage that comes with it, he nodded.

"Ya know...." said Dusty, "Sometimes I wish I could do what you're doing right now, but... I don't think AT&T would like it if I did that."

For $16 and no contract, I walked out a free man.  Will I miss my phone?  No.  My apps, my games?  Maybe for a few days....?

Will I regret this for one second?  No way.  This is the beginning of my new journey.

Call it a reverse mid-life crisis.