Control Your Phone

The guests were gathering.  Taking their seats.  Meeting up with friends and family.  There was a buzz in the air.  “Can you believe it?  Graduating from high school?  How can that be? I remember her kindergarten graduation like it was yesterday! Where is _____ going to college?”  We were buying time while we waited to hear the sound of the bagpipes, signaling that the students were about to come down the aisle and take their seats.

I pulled my phone out of my bag and got ready to take some pictures of this momentous event.  My niece would soon become a high school graduate!  This is a big deal. I will need pictures for Instagram, Facebook, and for my photo wall. Pictures to share with my family and friends. That’s when I saw it.  “Storage full.  Change your settings to allow for more storage.”  Now?  I have about two minutes, and I refuse to pay for more storage.  I frantically began to delete photos from my phone.  Still…not enough storage.  I offloaded some apps.  Nope.  Still not enough.  Finally I turned the phone off and on again.  There we go.  The camera is working.  Within seconds, the bagpipes blast their somewhat flat notes and the students march down the aisle.  I snap a picture of Mimi in her cap and gown.

As it turns out, most of the commencement address is about the horrors of cell phones.  The director of the upper school quotes research from Nichols Carr’s book, The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains.  He talks about how cell phones and the internet are rewiring our brains so that we are increasingly unable to concentrate and think deeply for extended periods of time.  As he is talking, I feel myself wanting to reach into my purse and check to see if I have received any text messages.  It’s been at least twenty minutes since I checked the last time.  What if my daughter is trying to reach me? (She’s not.) And then there is the camera situation.  Maybe I should check to see if I have more photo space.  After all, Mimi will be receiving her diploma shortly.  But I resist.  It’s not easy.  He goes on to talk about how we are addicted to our devices and that this is isolating us and damaging our relationships and our learning processes.  When he gives the students four tips for how to manage in college, one of them is, “Control your phone.”  He encourages the students to leave their phones in the dorm when they go to the dining hall.  That way they will be forced to engage with other students.  I wonder if any student will be brave enough to try such a challenging experiment.

Today I decided to give it a try. I tried to “control my phone.”  I left my phone inside while I did yard work and had lunch.  I thought about my phone a few times.  What if someone is trying to reach me?  What if I have an email that I should be looking at and responding to?  (Really?  It’s Sunday.  No one is emailing me.) I felt good, sort of cleansed. I know it was only a half day, but it was a start.  I’m going to try to find ways this summer to stay off the computer and to leave my phone behind.  I am going to try to find more time to get lost in books or to sit and listen to the world around me.  I’m going to try to be more present.  More mindful.  I’m going to try to control my phone…and my life. Wish me luck!