by Fèliks Cheang Standing in line at a Starbucks on Sunday morning, I felt, as usual, my fingers itching to take my iPhone out of my pocket. A connected gadget is my boredom killer. Who still needs wrinkled back-issue magazines in clinics and salons, or TV screens in metros or elevators? This time, however, my ennui couldn’t be eased with a few scrolls and taps, because my phone was at home on my bedside table. This was my tech detox experiment — my ‘Gadget Sabbath.’ Phones may connect us, but they also cause the biggest disconnection in life, cynical people say. They wish for their ‘years b.c.’ (that is, year before cells), when their lives were still enjoyable. Was there life before an iPhone? Being a ‘phoneless urban savage’ was not easy. I had not been parted from nor turned off my phone in six years, except for the occasional restart or those time-consuming iOS updates. I wished my phone hadn’t influenced me as much as I loathed to admit. Standing in a long queue was torture, and I couldn’t even remember the last time I had waited in line without a phone. My hand kept plucking towards the pocket where my phone always was.
Not being able to scroll through the latest Facebook posts and my friends’ breakfast shots on Instagram, I attempted to divert my attention to other people nearby. An old man was playing Candy Crush opposite his wife, who was watching Running Man on her iPad. A pair of secondary school girls were busy snapping selfies in different angles with their starting-to-melt ice cream, without even taking a bite of it. A young man was constructing oh-so-unique captions for his Instagram posts that would be worth a #wiseword hashtag. Even a baby girl in her pram was playing tic-tac-toe with her mother’s tablet. For about a minute seeing the real world, my jitters started ratcheting up. I felt like an outsider having dinner alone in a restaurant on Valentine’s Day. At that moment, being a Darwinist, I was quite sure that someday people would be born with a pair of downward-looking eyes. After getting my chai latte, I looked around and didn’t see a trace of my friend. I was anxious if she would be late for lunch, but I didn’t have a phone, an iPad, or anything I could use to call her. My hands were tied. What if there was an accident? It was 11:00 a.m. and she was now thirty minutes late. Yes, I should call her. I began walking down the street trying to find a payphone. When was the last time I used a payphone, thought of a payphone, or even let this word come out of my mouth? Surprised but not taken aback, I bumped into a few tissue vending machines without seeing a single phone box. Of course, people might forget their tissues or a handkerchief, but never their cells. Never. Maybe only in Harry Potter would people needed a phone box to visit the HQ of the Ministry of Magic in London. And even if I could find a phone most of them take IC cards, not coins. Isn’t a payphone supposed to be a last resort for people without mobiles? Why do carrier companies think we have an IC card just to make a one-minute call? But now, who cares? I finally saw my long-awaited friend getting out of a taxi. My complaint was replaced by remorse after her explanation: our lunch was put back by one hour and she had posted the change on her Facebook event page that morning. But I knew nothing, even if she had said you don’t have to bring your wallet because I will buy you lunch I - didn’t - have - my - phone. We sat down in a ramen restaurant and were immediately told that a Facebook check-in would earn free ice cream. What? I felt devastated, like arriving at an airline check-in counter without my passport. And they turned down my suggestion to post the check-in when I got home. At the end of the day, I simply realised that I can’t quit my gadgets! Not only am I an addict, but everyone around me has made me a slave of my phone. Maybe smartphones and tablets aren’t as bad as drugs, but they are still addictive and steal our focus from partners, family, and friends. Yet still I would be blamed for not answering their texts and calls, not retweeting or giving likes to their selfies. It’s time to admit that we are socialising along two lines — both online and offline. Not carrying a phone is simply an urban crime. After all, I can go out sans eyes, sans teeth, sans taste, but hey, sans everything but my iPhone, please! a
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Authors
The Taida Student Journal has been active since 1995 with an ever-changing roster of student journalists at NTU. Click the above link to read about the authors Archives
May 2024
|