Tag Archives: flip phone

Two Weeks: No Social Media

Posted on 10 January 2019 | 2 comments

Today marks the two-week mark for being off of social media. I have tried in vain to delete my Facebook Messenger account, so if you are one of those people who is still sending things there, please know that I am not getting them. Since my mobile devices are in MN, I don’t have a way to deactivate my account for that app, because it is specifically not designed to be used on a computer, so it appears like my account is still active. I assure you, it isn’t. They certainly don’t object to you signing up and checking it compulsively on the computer. I have found the same to be true of so many computer accounts: easy to set up, not easy to delete.

Anyway, here are my thoughts after two weeks. I have read a lot of news and books, and I have planned more efficiently and more effectively for teaching, which is my job after all. I feel like I have devoted more time to quiet, focused activities, rather than worrying about what other people are doing, and rather than worrying about why I am not doing those same things. Comparison is the thief of joy, as I have said before, and when I can’t see what Janet or Phillip is doing, I can’t be jealous, envious, or comparative.

I have also noticed that I am more attentive when I watch a movie or a TV program, because I don’t have my phone in my hand the whole time, checking and writing, checking and waiting, or simply scrolling and not really reading. I can focus more fully, and I remember what I watched on the screen or remember what I did online, because I am not splitting my attention between the two. I am fairly decent at multitasking, but none of us is really as good at it as we think we are.

Those were the goals of this experiment, too, so it helps to see them unfold before me.

The one drawback of this experiment, which I am sure will dissipate over time, is that I feel fairly disconnected from some people I care about. I would imagine that before long, I will watch some friendships cease to exist, I will spend more quality time with fewer friends, or friends who don’t typically reach out, may begin to reach out. We’ll see where this goes, but I can say that this week, in particular, has been a little lonely probably because I am back in Indiana without Bec.

Even though it’s difficult sometimes, I am still focusing on making every day the best day.

*

Starting on next Monday, January 14, my brother and I are embarking on a Whole30, so that will be another new chapter in my wellness journey. I did a Whole30 once, before living a “paleo/primal” lifestyle for about six months, and I lost a lot of weight, felt really healthy, and completed an Ironman 70.3, so maybe this will help me get out of my wellness funk. Next week, I also plan to start swimming for 30 minutes each morning and walking for 30 minutes after school every day.

*

My goals for 2019:

  1. No social media, except this blog. No smart devices.
  2. Swim, walk, or run every single day. Hopefully run a 50K in October.
  3. Read at least one book each month.
  4. Meditate for 10 minutes in the morning and 10 minutes in the evening.
  5. Practice silence and listening, with intention.
  6. Eat mostly real food and fewer carbs, specifically sugar.

2 Comments

Posted in Diet, Eating, Fat, Fitness, Flippy, Food, Goals, Health, Meditation, Mental Health, Paleo/Primal, Running, Swimming, Triathlon, Walking, Weight Loss, Wellness

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , ,

Two Sets of Directions and Flippy

Posted on 2 January 2019 | Leave a comment

Yesterday, I had to go get cups for my second job at Caribou Coffee, because we were running out of large iced cups, and, while you wouldn’t expect to in a place like Minnesota in January, we use a lot of large iced cups. Minnesotans love their cold brew. I had never been to the Caribou Coffee I needed to go, because it is located on the opposite side of the Twin Cities from where I live, and I have no need to ever go there, except to get cups. Normally, I would just plop that address into my iPhone Apple Maps and get there and back with no problem. I panicked for a quick minute, then I used the computer in our weird little backroom, dish room, office area and found the Caribou that had cups and used google maps to find the easiest route. Then I wrote the route out on paper, like I used to write motorcycle routes on my arm in Sharpie marker. Yes, I rode my motorcycle all the way to Florida and back and all the way to Door County and back with only directions in Sharpie marker on my arm. Needless to say, I made it from my Caribou to the Caribou 30 minutes away without incident.

Today, I went to my favorite donut shop, Glam Dolls for breakfast. I navigated my way there with no problem, but they were closed for an extended New Year’s vacation. I was incredibly sad, but my eventual goal was to end up in Roseville, so I could visit my friends at Apple, and so I could grade my students’ work before finishing my quarter three planning after work tomorrow and Friday. As I (very sadly) pulled away from Glam Dolls, I said to myself, good luck getting to Roseville! MNDOT has rerouted the entrance onto 35W from I-94, where I used to use Franklin Street and then cross 5 lanes of traffic on I-94 to exit onto 35W North, and I had to fend for myself, so I just stayed on I-94, thinking that I would eventually bump into something familiar. Just as I had the thought that I might have to stay on I-94 until it merged onto 52, which is way out of the way, exit signs for 280 started popping up, and I vaguely remembered Jack telling me that’s how he gets from where we live to Roseville, so I took the exit and hoped for the best. I am proud to report that I made it to my usual Starbucks without any problems.

*

After a week of being with Flippy (this is what my lovely flip phone will be affectionately called from here on out), I have decided that intentionality is one side effect of flip phone use. Everything I do with Flippy is very intentional. Texts take three to four times as long to write, so I ask myself if I really need to say what I am about to say. Is what I am about to type really worth all of the tapping and strange navigation on the phone? I am much more thoughtful about what I put out there, because what I put out there takes more work. Another thing about being intentional is that I can’t just look things up on a whim, because I have to be near my computer. I wondered, this morning at 4:38 when I woke up for the first time—when is the first official day of baseball season? Thursday, March 28 if you need to know— and normally I would’ve grabbed my phone, looked it up, and gone down a rabbit hole of looking at things. Instead, I wondered it, said to myself, “Look that up later, Self,” and then went back to sleep for another hour or so.

Finally, I am finding that this experiment is doing just what I had hoped. Because texting is so labor intensive, I have made more phone calls to people in the past week than I have in probably the past year. I usually have three people who I call on a regular basis (and if you ask them, they will tell you it is very irregular): Bec, Merideth, and Amy. I rarely call anyone else. In the past week, I’ve talked with my parents (twice), my brother (twice), Bec (several times), and a couple of other people. Already, this feels like the best thing that’s happened to me in a while.

 

Leave a comment

Posted in Abstinence, Addiction, Ethics, Flippy, Goals, Health, Mental Health, Relationships, Technology, Wellness

Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

Kyocera Cadence; DK Standrick

Posted on 29 December 2018 | Leave a comment

This morning I tried to activate my new phone, but it didn’t work when I tried to follow Verizon’s instructions on their website, so I called and got help from a very nice and knowledgeable woman who activated it with little to no difficulty.

I am nervously excited.

In a nostalgic moment, I was excited to text with the old key pad, but that excitement quickly wore off when I realized how labor intensive texting like that can be. I figure this will just force me to call people more frequently, since I won’t want to type out long messages one letter (up to four clicks) at a time. Here’s a quick “I’m sorry” to all of those people who, like me, hate to talk on the phone because texting is so much easier.

I can already feel the need for nearly constant digital contact with people kind of sliding away, which is the goal of this whole thing anyway, but I didn’t figure it would happen so quickly. Before when I have quit social media, I got sucked back in pretty quickly, but social media is more labor intensive on a computer than a smart device, so I may have saved myself that temptation this round.

At any rate, I am looking forward to spending my time reading, running, writing, and even watching TV or movies, instead of scrolling. I am really focusing on just doing one thing at a time and giving that one thing my undivided attention. Right now, I am writing. The TV is off, the phone is in my pocket, and I am focused.

I guess my big goal with this is to get back to where I was ten years ago where I can focus, I can remember, and I can relish the time I spend with others. I don’t like my presence with others being split between the screen and the person, and I, personally, haven’t been able to curb that need for digital connectedness without this drastic measure.

Tuesday, January 1 is the real start date, but by then I’ll be  five days off of social media and three days on the flippy, so I’ll have a good head start.

I’m ready.

I’m nervously excited.

Kyocera Cadence in the Box, Ready to be Set up
After Battery Installation and Charging

*

This morning as I was reading the News App on my iPhone, before I activated the new phone, I ran across a pretty sweet little journal called Trail and Kale, and apparently they started in 2012 when the founders began trail running as a way to stay fit.

I love their site’s format and the way it’s so easy to navigate. The things you’d most like to read have their own categories, then there is an everything category. For example, when you click on “Interviews,” you can see “Elite Runners” or “All Interviews.”

Of course, nothing a magazine, website, or other forum can do to make things easier to find, helps when I am looking for content that I clearly found in another place. Just before I started writing this, I was thinking about an article about Darbykai (or DK) Standrick in Canadian Trail Running, and I could have sworn it was in Trail and Kale, so I spent half an hour looking for it there.

But, it wasn’t in Trail and Kale, so here I am now, explaining that silliness to you instead of making my point, which is that most elite athletes now have a social media presence. In fact, that’s how I know about most of the amazing trail runners I know about, but Standrick has no social media presence, which is what interested me about her.

Standrick is out there doing her own thing, and kicking ass at it, and not sounding her own horn. Her running philosophy seems to be a good one as well: “Run when you want. Run when you don’t want with the option of going home. Try and go fast sometimes and try not to sweat other times.” I think I may try to implement that approach; run when I want, run when I don’t, lay low, and figure out who I am again. And again. And again.

If there’s a theme to my life, it is figuring out who I am over and over again. Here’s to every day being the best day.

Leave a comment

Posted in Addiction, Fat Runner, Fitness, Goals, Mental Health, Running, Social Media, Technology, Trail Running, Wellness

Tagged , , , , , , , ,

Jump-Starting My 2019 Resolutions

Posted on 27 December 2018 | Leave a comment

I decided to simply get going on my resolutions, since most of the time, when I get an itch to do something and then wait until an appropriate marker (like New Year’s, or Advent, or my birthday) to begin, I lose my itch and my motivation and end up failing. I also read an article that said if someone is going to make a large life change, they are better off not telling people until they have been working at it for a while.

When we tell people our plans for reformation, they congratulate us and are supportive and that increases our dopamine levels, so we feel really good for a short time. After about two or three months, people stop congratulating us, because let’s be real, after that long, just do the thing already, and why do we need to keep telling you that you’re awesome, but we should actually. Keep telling them they are awesome for doing that thing. In reality, we do need to keep that excitement up, because once that dopamine feed wears off, we are way more apt to stop the good new behavior and return to the old destructive one. For example, smokers quitting smoking. Let’s just encourage the shit out them forever, so they get that dopamine, which is better for you than nicotine, supposedly,

Let’s see if this year is the golden one. Let’s see if this is the one where I do the things I know are good for me.

I started this morning, a practice morning before I get my flip phone, by getting up and checking my smart phone from which I removed all of the apps last night. I checked it ten or twelve times before my brain was finally convinced that I didn’t need Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram to start my day. I did give in and check the news, but there was nothing new there.

I can tell you what this experience feels like so far: not having social media or any apps feels like when you chip a tooth and you have to keep checking it with your tongue, even though that tooth is really fucking sharp and keeps cutting your tongue. You just have to keep revisiting it.

In fact, when I came here to type this, even though I had been reading Thomas Merton’s The Seven Storey Mountain to prepare my brain for thinking mode instead of social media mode, my fingers typed “facebook” into the search bar, instead of typing “wordpress” like I asked them to. I do need to go on record as being someone who finds great value in social media, some of the time, and when I say I got into thinking mode to come here, not like social media, I mean that the preponderance of social media is done in snippets, because that it its purpose: quick, little bites of information exchange. You’ll probably agree with me that it’s a little jarring when someone posts a long, beautiful, well-thought-out piece of writing on Facebook, and that is because we’ve used it for quick bits and advertising for so long that we’ve forgotten it can be used for other things.

Keep in mind through this year, that I am not a social media hater; there is a place for social media, and its very handy for what it is, but I can’t handle it obviously, because three to four hours a day, when I could be doing just about anything else I love during that time, is way too much. All of the to say, I hope my writing improves this year, I hope my brain grows, and I hope you enjoy the journey.

*

My goals for 2019:

  1. No social media, except this blog. No smart devices.
  2. Swim, walk, or run every single day. Hopefully run a 50K in October.
  3. Read at least one book each month.
  4. Meditate for 10 minutes in the morning and 10 minutes in the evening.
  5. Practice silence and listening, with intention.
  6. Eat mostly real food and fewer carbs, specifically sugar.

My mantra for 2019:

Make every day the best day.

Leave a comment

Posted in Goals

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , ,

Flip Phone: Kicking My Social Media Addiction

Posted on 24 December 2018 | 3 comments

I just ordered my new Kyocera Cadence LTE.

I ordered a flip phone.

To replace my iPhone. 

I am not yet quite sure how I feel about it. I have turned off my iPad and my Apple Watch, and I will turn off my iPhone, once my new phone arrives in the mail. I have this weird, deep, nervous pit in my stomach, which sounds really stupid when I write it down, but it’s true. Moving from working at Apple for three years, where I had to know the newest of the newest technology to make my living, to turning off all of my Apple devices except my computer, which I need for work (I just can’t bring myself to use a Chromebook), seems like a giant leap, but I am looking forward to reclaiming my life from the depths of social media and screen addiction. 

I’ve read a couple of articles which indicate that screen addiction, particularly social media addiction, stimulates and grows similar neural pathways as opioid addiction. I believe that assessment to be true. I’ve watched people in my life struggle with other addictions, and the hold that social media and my smart devices have on me resembles the hold of various substances in their lives. I don’t say this to minimize their struggle, but simply to highlight my own struggle with the screen. 

Over the past four for five years, I have tried countless ways to kick my screen habit: setting a goal of a month without social media, just using one social medium, only checking in the morning or night, cutting usage to an hour, or even only using my computer for it. I have had zero success in beating this addiction. 

If I am honest, in the past couple of years, I’ve become even more addicted, spending sometimes three or four hours a day on my phone when I should be doing just about anything else. “I should go for a run,” or I could just edit a few more pictures. “I should sketch something,” or I could just post a couple more things here on Twitter. “I should go cook some awesome food to give to the neighbors,” or I could share a couple more articles here on Facebook. Writing? Church? Exercise? Reading? Art? Preparation for class? Spending time with friends and family? Cooking? In my mind, of late, have any of these things been as important as posting just this one more thing on social media?

After an immense amount of soul-searching and asking what would have to change for me to be content with the direction my life is taking, I recognized that I needed to kick my addiction to social media, specifically Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. I needed to stop measuring my life in likes, comments, and shares. As Theodore Roosevelt said, “Comparison is the thief of joy,” and I am tired of not being joyful, because I am continually comparing myself to others, some of whom I have never met. I have the perfect opportunity to reset my technological world this semester by buying a flip phone and leaving all of my other devices in Minnesota when I leave for Indiana here in a couple of weeks. 

What in my life will have to change as a part of this experiment?

First, I recognized pretty quickly that I will have to start paying attention to where I am going. I will not have immediate access to GPS. I will be forced to regrow the maps that used to be in my head, and to grow new ones for the new places I will go. I’ll be forced to pay attention when I go somewhere, so I can get there again. I will also need to purchase some paper maps for cities where I visit frequently, like Indianapolis. And I will need to print directions to get some places. This is a bit scary for some reason, though it never scared me when I drove to Mexico in my early twenties with no GPS and no Apple Maps. 

Second, there are many places I go every day that have mobile apps, instead of cards. I’m thinking about my daily coffee stop, where I usually show my phone instead of using cash or a card, or when I check into LA Fitness with my phone instead of the card they gave me when I first registered with them. I suppose I’ll have to figure out where to get new cards and start using more cash payments. Who knows? Maybe I’ll even save some money in this whole thing. 

Third, I rely on being able to look up everything on Google. Who is that actor? What else was she in? What is this song? What was that one painting called? Where is that building located? Who made that sculpture? What is the name of that one state park? What time does that store open? Should I go to that restaurant? What time is that movie showing? What disease do I have if I have these symptoms? How old is Ruth Bader Ginsburg? What about Betty White? I mean, I Google pretty much everything these days. You probably do too. The sad part is that I used to actually retain information, but now I just Google it. 

Fourth, and probably most important for me, I take MANY photos, and I mean many. I probably take 10-20 photos every day, but the phone I purchased has a really bad camera. And I did that on purpose. For one year, I want to be real and present in everything I do. I just want to live and experience things, and I don’t want to be the person with camera. Don’t get me wrong, taking photos brings me a great amount of joy, but when I am out with my friends and they ask me to take pictures, sometimes it’s a lot of pressure to get the right shot, to make it look good, to edit it well, to make sure everyone has the right look on their face (let’s be honest, that’s a real challenge when some of you all are involved!), to make sure you didn’t get some random person in the background, to make sure you got all of the background, to ensure the composition is pleasing to the eye, and to be the person people rely on to capture the group memories. For a year, I just want to see what I see with my eyes and keep the memories in my head. 

Lastly, group messages and T9 texting. I don’t really think I need to say anything else about this one. 

I am excited about the prospect of breaking this addiction, and I am finally in the right headspace to leave some things behind, because they aren’t serving their intended purpose in my life. As they say, I’ve hit rock bottom a few times with my mental health in regards to comparing myself with others, so I’m ready to move on.

Here’s to a beautiful 2019.

3 Comments

Posted in Abstinence, Addiction, Goals, Mental Health, Technology, Wellness

Tagged , , , , , , , ,