My Love-Hate Relationship With My Phone

My relationship with my cell phone?

It’s complicated. I hate it. I lose it multiple times a day. I am always checking something on it, fueling my anxiety.

And while it is a phone, you should absolutely never call me on it. I do not like talking on the phone. I will text all day and night, but I don’t actually want to converse.

I told you… it’s complicated.

I have my phone with me most of the time and I am a moderate to aggressive texter. Lots of sentences. Each one sent separately. Abusive use of emojis. I like to express myself, so what can I say?

I wish my phone only texted and emailed. There is no need for me to actually talk to anyone live. That to me is worse than giving a speech to a stadium full of people.

For someone who always has my phone, I also lose it daily. I regularly lift up couch cushions and dig through my pockets looking for it. I could call it and hear it ring, but it’s usually on silent because I can’t have it on in certain work situations. No I can’t remember to turn it off silent.

When I was a teenager, all I wanted was a phone. The kind with a curly cord and big buttons was a big deal and if you were super lucky, you scored one of the clear phones where the wires were visible. All the cool kids had their own phone lines and answering machines. I have no idea why this was so cool.

The idea of sitting down and talking on the phone for hours seems tortuous. Can’t we just communicate by sending each other memes? The only time I will take a phone call is when I am in the car driving. I am already trapped. Might as well make use of the time.

Cell phones debuted when I was in high school. One per family and I usually got to take it with me to the movies or the mall so I could call my parents at home to pick me up. It remained in my purse, all 6 pounds of it, and was only opened to make a call. There was no scrolling or texting. It was pure utility.

Now I am in my 30s, working full time with a family and I feel like I can’t break up with my phone.

I’ve made some progress.

I used to be someone who had it in my hand at all times. Now, when I get home after work, I put that dreadful thing onto the charger and do my very best to ignore it.

I also used to keep it in bed with me after falling asleep scrolling and staying up way too late. I went cold turkey and broke that habit about a year ago and I sleep better than I ever have. Just having it out of my immediate vicinity is huge. I don’t even think about it anymore! Well, most of the time. Sometimes I cheat and read the news on my phone before bed.

There are definitely days where I am on my phone more than I would like and it’s mostly engaging in behaviors that feed my anxiety.

I admit to oftens sending emails and then immediately refreshing my inbox 5 times to see if there is a reply. I do the same with text messages. I learned that not everyone responds to things when they receive them.

A lot of people actually triage their messages which to me is just madness.

I live in the moment. I thrive on the now. I also am a very forgetful person so I would rather just respond before it gets buried in the incoming messages.

Realizing that not everyone has the same communication style as I do is difficult. My husband almost never responds to a text right away. If you ask him, not everything needs a response. If you ask me, everything needs a response right now! I have been to known to write him a little novel and he will respond with “k.” If we were still dating, this would have driven me nuts. I would have been sitting on my couch screen shotting it to all my friends asking “WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?”

I wasted a lot of time in my dating years focused on my cell phone and now that I am married, I almost wish we could go back to pay phones and landlines. We didn’t used to sit there and replay voicemails over and over the way we re-read text messages and look for meaning. We didn’t expect an immediate call back when someone didn’t answer.

I think we, or at least I, was a far more relaxed and present person.

I think it’s still possible to achieve peace and still use my cell phone, but it’s going to take some commitment and discipline.

Putting it on the charger after work has been a game changer. Removing social media apps? That will take some time. Baby steps.

I am convinced that most of my “checking my phone” is about trying to resolve uncertainty. Our brains hate it and so we look for answers. I definitely struggle with “not knowing.” How will this person at work respond to my email? When will my package arrive? My friend hasn’t responded to my offer to hang out and it’s been days. Is she mad at me? This is the stuff I think we all worry about.

If you’re like me and you are the type of person who likes to respond to things immediately and also be responded to immediately, this is a real struggle. You may find yourself speculating on what the silence on the other end of the phone means.

Spoiler alert: we will never know what it means. There is only what we make it mean. I can tell you that it means nothing about you.

I have friends that for various reasons do not respond to text messages for days and weeks. I know that he or she is using the phone, but for whatever reason, the text message isn’t a priority.

Sort of like how I treat regular snail mail. The box can fill up to the point of overflowing and I am the type of person who will get to it when I get to it. There is no urgency whatsoever. The person who isn’t answering my text message isn’t saying F you to me necessarily. He or she just isn’t wired the same way I am, and this is hard to accept and understand.

We live in the culture of immediacy where people can tweet something and get thousands of responses the same day. We know how instantaneous communication has become and we’ve forgotten that communication is really just about human beings, all of whom are all unique and distinct. Some people are great communicators and others are not, and neither of them is a reflection on me. It feels personal when someone ignores your text messages, but most often it’s not. People are busy with their lives and their families. It must be freeing to not feel so tethered to your phone!

I can’t go entirely off the grid and ditch my phone, but I think there is a way to live my life without it attached to me at all times and without it controlling my life.

I know this because on the days where I accidentally leave it at home when I go to work or I forget it when I run an errand, I am FREE. At first there is that moment of panic, but then for the rest of the time, I can just be present in whatever I am doing. Even if that is just going to Target. I can make eye contact with people and not bump into them because my head is buried in my phone. I can have more mental clarity because I am not focused on whether someone is sending me an important email.

I can drive without worrying if I am missing an important message. It’s a very weird feeling to be that free.

I think some people call this feeling “peace.”

If you don’t have a complicated relationship with your cell phone, you’re doing it right. You probably have a healthier more balanced relationship with technology than I do and I am working on that.

For now, if you see me furiously typing while loading my groceries onto to the conveyor belt or walking through the store, understand that I really am working on the problem, but first I just need to respond to this really important email….