Here’s a moment from my weekend that has me struggling with ditching my iPhone cold-turkey. As you’ll read from many self-improvement articles and books, it’s all about using digital tech in a mindful manner.
I’ve been reading Reclaiming Conversation by Sherry Turkle over the past couple weeks. She writes in a section titled “Alone With,” that when we think we’re alone, we’re actually alone with ourselves, and this is a relationship in itself. It’s a super important relationship that we often neglect.
This connects to her thesis that reducing our usage on screens will help us connect better with those physically surrounding us.
In any case, in the spirit of my read for the weekend, I was solo-ing around downtown at this point when I got struck by these pages. But this is where it gets complicated: I took a photo of this passage with my phone to share with a dear friend of mine. How ironic?
But then something else happened ironically: someone next to me when I was waiting for my order of falafel said, “I thought I was the only one that took photos of pages that resonate with me.” We ended up having a nice conversation for 10 minutes all because of that digital photo I took with my phone.
Using my mobile device actually created two conversations: one digitally, and one in the physical realm — contrary to what Sherry Turkle recommends in her book.
It was a cool reminder that there are no hard, fast rules about anything, including the digital handcuffs we carry around (phones).
