My Old Smartphone

Note: This file is less polished because it's a bit time-sensitive.

For the first time in over half a year – 142 days – I picked up my smartphone. It felt weird.

I got my first smartphone when I was a kid. It was a second or third generation iPod Touch, gifted to me by my grandparents on Christmas. I shed tears of joy when I opened the box, quite loudly too. My family was worried that I hated it. I didn’t; in fact, I loved it. It was my first phone since my smartphone, taken away because a stranger texted me. It gave me access to YouTube, rage comics and eventually Reddit. I loved to customize it, going for a classy Cookie Monster wallpaper.

Soon enough I spent a lot of time on it. It hadn't consumed my life and I consumed fairly innocent content, though. But around the time I became a teen, I went to some pretty dark areas on the web. It was easier to browse them on my phone than on my PC and eventually my laptop, where my family could see me. I’ll spare the details – for now at least – but these spaces fucked me up a bit.

I struggled a lot with my relationship to my smartphone. I saw how much time I spent online and where the spaces I stayed in were leading me. I chose not to, though.

This is pretty common but for me, it was a bit more sinister. The thing is, I have OCD. Specifically, I have a lot of obsessions about by own morality. And I felt that by being in these spaces and hurting others, I was doing something good for the world... I wasn’t. I only felt hurt and detached from the world around me.

By the time I got my flip phone, I had already done a lot of healing. I had largely gotten my OCD under control but I still wanted to be more present. I hated going to family parties and spending time on my phone or filling up quiet seconds with whatever I could get my hands on. I hated spending entire days watching video essays.

About last year or so, I resolved to stay off technology unless necessary for a month. I had pretty strict rules, based off of Cal Newport’s Digital Minimalism. I treated as an experiment in whether or not an unplugged life is right for me.

It was great! It was so, so great. I develop a ravenous appetite for books, I got a grip on my studies, and I relished in talking to people in-person. I ended up continuing this experiment, in modified form, for a month or two. And then I got my second flip phone; my first one in over a decade.

It was weird at first. It didn’t have autocomplete so I had to look down at the keypad to enter numbers. And if I had to enter the same letter twice, I’d have to wait. A word as simple as ‘Hello’ became a chore: 4-4-3-3-5-5-5 – wait a beat – 5 – ah shit, I pressed it too early – backspace-5-5-5-6-6-6. Even so, I enjoyed it. It was nice to have a device that I just used for calls and texts. And thankfully, I eventually got T9 to work (although it still suggests “boy” when I enter “any!”)

So from July until October, I used two phones: my flip phone for texts and calls, and my smartphone for everything else. It worked well, although I still used my smartphone for more functionality than I would've liked. But overall, it was a nice, happy middleground. I had access to GPS, bus schedules, check depositing, all at my fingertips.

… And then my smartphone’s screen cracked.

It was brutal. I fell and rubbed it against coarse rock. You could see its innards. And in a matter of days, the screen started turning green from water damage. I turned it off immediately and stored it in my room, where it’s been for 6 months.

I picked it up again because I’ve been wanting to transfer photos off my phone. I developed a passion for amateur photography while I had it and I really wanted to publish them somewhere (that place being here, soon enough). But these photos were only available on my smartphone. I ditched most social media over a year ago. And tragically, I didn’t save any of the photos I uploaded.

When I turned on the phone, I was shocked to see that the screen was fine. I was expecting to have to use ADB or something similar. But I don’t!

Handling the device has felt weird, though. In the past six months, I haven’t used a smartphone except when helping people. The interface has felt alien to me, but I have some memories of how smartphones are supposed to work. While it felt weird to navigate menus through touch and not physical buttons, I was able to overcome this. I recognized that this device wasn’t mine, and there was some detachment there.

But this smartphone is mine. It’s a remnant of my past, locked in time. The last tab displayed was Ms Rachel’s Woman of the Year outfit (super cute, I must say). The last apps opened were Telegram, Firefox, and Discord. And the homepage shows a calendar app, an app for Shabbat times, and a weather app. It feels very me, and also very much of its time.

And yet when I touched it, it didn’t quite feel like my device. I initally forgot the password and what apps I had downloaded. The interface which once felt like an extension of myself now felt like someone else’s, designed for their needs and desires. I hold it with the same gentleness as I would another’s device. I stumble over the keyboard, too. It feels just slightly too large.

Holding it, I also feel opportunity, for better or for worse. I want to continue using a flip phone but I've also thought about getting a new smartphone for the sake of convenience. One which I don't have to worry about using near water. I didn't though because I was uncomfortable admitting that I broke my phone. I could always pass it off as a cracked screen and get a new one. It would make my life easier in many ways. I wouldn’t need to walk an hour to deposit a check, I’d have GPS and access to certain apps... Not many people know this but Uber vouchers can only be used on a smartphone or via a phone call. Every time I wanted to use one, I’d need to ask my brother who’s in another state for help.

But it's also nice not having a smartphone. I don't need to finance my phone, I don't have to worry about it taking over my life again, and it provides some much needed respite from the Internet sometimes (although I'll admit, not enough -- I installed a browser for the sake of viewing info about bus stops, and started using Reddit. On my flip phone. Thankfully not nearly as much when I had a smartphone, though.) Besides, a flip phone also feels natural to me now. A smartphone, not so much.

So I don’t know if I’ll get a new smartphone, or when that transition might happen. But we’ll see! At the very least, I’m not going to be using my old smartphone regularly. That’s a tad too risky for my tastes.

Below is the last video I downloaded on my phone, before it broke. I think it's cute :-)