So I thought I was doing pretty well to go on holiday for 2 weeks and hardly touch my phone at all. I kept thinking about how well I was doing ‘unplugged’.
I was ignoring the quick check of my iPhone in the evenings. Plus the growing sense of desperation as the button on my iPhone got worse and worse, so that I couldn’t change between applications or use it properly.
I at last had to admit that my iPhone was totally broken. The button wasn’t working at all really and I had to switch it on and off (not a quick thing to do), if I wanted to change from messages to phone to apps etc. You’d see me like some mad crazy woman desperately pressing the button over and over in the hope that it would suddenly work, as it did sporadically kick back into action. So I went into my O2 shop, and realised I had a problem with my phone addiction when I considered buying a new one to cover the potential fortnight without!
Instead I went back to a ‘normal’ phone for the past 10 days. OMG I’d totally forgotten how to text. Plus, I’ve realised that my iPhone has taken on such a big part of my life, that it’s become ‘more than a phone’.
I literally couldn’t sleep well without it, because there was an app I use to clarify my thoughts before bed time. The apps for twitter and facebook don’t work as well on my ipad, so that was tricky. Plus I wanted to check the weather, and play music, and play videos to keep the Little Dimples busy or games for Curly Headed Boy when we were in queues. Where was my life before my iphone! I couldn’t do my food shop in the car on the way home and now have a house with no food in it.
Problem is I don’t really want to break my addiction, because I love my iPhone. Is that sad?
What I have promised to do is make the most of what I learnt, which is to ‘PUT THE PHONE DOWN’ and be present with my kids more. So I’m going to have twitter/facebook times of the day and ignore it more. I’d already banned the phone during the key crunch times like getting dressed, breakfast and the whole bedtime routine period from dinner onwards as focus was definitely needed. But I’m going to be even stricter from now on. You wouldn’t believe how many parents I saw on their phones at the festival that I went to at the weekend, or the numbers of times I saw the kids trying to talk to parents who were focussing on a phone. It’s sad really and definitely makes for frustrated, irritated kids who feel that a phone is more important than them.
So wish me luck in my journey to control my iPhone addiction and only use it’s power for good ;o)