The dumbphone challenge: Day 4- How's it going so far?

Do you know the feeling after a noisy concert or bar when you get out and it's finally silent. It's kind of a empty, but also relieving feeling when you can properly hear your surroundings and thoughts again. You walk home feeling melancholic remembering the night you were having. The city is silent. You look around, but you see nobody, you're on this road alone. It's pretty much how this challenge has felt so far.

@Pexels

In the first day the phone rang only once when my boss called. I'm used to receive notifications early on in the morning and go through the snaps my friends have sent me at night and throughout the day, but now nothing. And the silence has kept going all this time and it has felt bizarre. I'm a bit disappointed that none of my friends have not bothered to text or call me to ask how I'm doing. And I don't know how they are either, unless I call them myself. 

I can't deny that sometimes I miss my smartphone. First of all I'm used to Snapchat and sharing my daily experiences with my friends. Now that I don't have such a luxury and I can't show things that I do to my friends and get their reaction. The camera is a nightmare so it's no use to take photos. It has made me feel lonely at times.

Seeing some difference already

I've noticed that old habits are hard to change. Still occasionally I take my phone and check the screen even I know that there is nothing there. I have also tired to set something on my phone by tapping the screen and then realized the fact that it doesn't have a touch screen. The texting is clumsy, it's like all of a sudden my hands were replaced by a pair of flippers. Tiny phone feels strange to hold as I try to hold it with two hands like I hold my smartphone. The phone doesn't know a lot of words yet and I also mistype a lot. The amount of characters on a text message is 140, so it really makes you wanna call instead if you have something important to say.

There is nothing to scroll through in my Nokia 225, so I noticed that I was much more productive at work. The breaks has felt much more relaxing as I was able to just close my eyes for a second and actually reload myself. Also I found the quiet times a little frustrating as I didn't have anything else that would make the time go faster.

Like I mentioned earlier, it's busy times at work and a lot is going on. My job doesn't require a constant use of computer and my work email has been silent the whole summer until now. For the past week I've received emails daily and some of them require almost immediate action. It's been challenging to remind myself to regularly check the email from the company's public computer. Luckily I've managed it quite well so far.

It's been a few days since I started the challenge and I'm glad to say that so far so good. Despite this has been such a short period of time,  I have still been able to see how much the society has changed in a bit over a decade. Living without a smartphone feels different, like suddenly your hands are tied and you simply can't function normally. You're missing something. Yes, I've been tempted to see how is the grass on the other side, especially when watching others scroll through their phones or  when I'm in a need to check out on something, like information or directions. Yet I haven't touched my smartphone since Wednesday morning when I did the exchange. 

I've found myself worrying a lot about how I'm being reached. Normally Whatsapp and Snapchat are my main channels to connect to people and now both of them are out of reach. I had to sacrifice a couple of great streaks for this challenge, but I'm over them now, mainly I think of if I've gotten some important messages in Whatsapp or not. I just got to trust that if someone has an urgent matter, they'll call.

@Pexels

Even though these first days have been strange and challenging in their own way, it has also been relieving not to be anchored to my phone that much. I can just leave it be and focus on the moment. Yes, at times it's tempting to think how are things in social media. It's like I just left the last bus of the day and now I'm watching the tail lights to slowly fade away and I feel a bit unsafe and have a strange gut feeling about my destination. But I guess the doubt and regret are part of this journey, it will sure get easier along the way. I'm off to a good start, might as well keep going the same way.

Those of you who have done the same think, I'd like to know what kind of feelings you went through along the way, did it get easier to adjust to your new lifestyle?

Logging off for now, thank you for reading and have a good one!