The Experience of (Almost) Disconnection in Our Time
I spent almost a week without a phone. It happens to everyone sooner or later: one moment it's working perfectly, and the next it won't stop rebooting. At first, you think it's an isolated event, maybe due to some past impact (with a delayed effect?). After a few hours without issues, the problem starts again, and eventually, you start to seriously worry about that photo and video backup you always said you'd do but never did.
Of course, everyone has memories they cherish and wouldn't want to lose. My concern, however, was not to lose memories that I shared with someone who is no longer here, making them unique and irreplaceable. Luck and tenacity helped me, and after a day dedicated to data recovery (in my case, this worked: putting the phone in airplane mode, uninstalling most background apps, keeping the phone still and only connected for data transfer) I saved everything that was there.
Demi, who was my life partner for 10 wonderful years.
After saving the files, however, all the problems of navigating disconnected in a world where everyone is connected arise. How do I let work know I'm running late? How do I contact my family? How do I read the e-book I left halfway? How do I show my annual public transport pass to the inspector?
Added to these daily practical issues was a special and temporary one: how do I help my girlfriend who, lucky her, lost her phone on the way to the station and is about to panic?
With a bit of luck and ingenuity, we managed to fill some of the gaps left by not having a smartphone in our pocket. This idea I absorbed from a book by an Italian philosopher: technology leads us to integrate its tools into our identity, so today
Modern Man = Man + Phone
Anyway, after solving the problem of the lost phone by consulting the "Find My Device" app on the PC, checking which device I was still logged into on WhatsApp (only on the tablet), and notifying those who might be worried about my absence, I found myself having to use the tablet as a sort of phone (almost like those surreal people I sometimes see around, who when they want to "call someone" pull out these square beasts converted into phones), having to memorize the route before leaving the house, and having to rely not on all the knowledge of the internet (translations, instant fact checks, and entertainment at your fingertips) but only on my own knowledge. For a restless person like me, it wasn't easy.
To compare with one of my typical walks: walking down the street through an intersection, my girlfriend lets me know (on WhatsApp) that she put last night's chicken in the oven to reheat. Nearby, I see a bakery and feel like buying some bread. I go in and buy something. At home, I could cook some burgers. Meanwhile, my brain starts thinking about the taste and texture of Sicilian bread and imagines a conversation with my girlfriend, sitting in the back seat of my family's car, driving home. "You've never seen bread like this," I say to my girlfriend in German. I think of my aunt, my mother, and my sister urging me because if following us speaking in English was difficult, in German good luck. I hadn't imagined my aunt in that car a moment before, but that's how imagination works. Pane (Bread) in German is Brot. Then I think: Panino (Roll). Brötchen. I start thinking of random words because I think there might be a common logic. Gatto (Cat), Katze. Gattino (Kitten), Kätzchen. I could go on more, but it would get progressively hard to translate…
Anyway, to not go on too long, I can say that going around without a phone made me notice how many people everywhere are walking with their heads down and elbows raised. Often the elbow rests on the hips so the biceps and shoulder don't get tired. What a sad sight. However, that one time I saw someone actually holding their phone screen at eye level rather than looking down, I felt uncomfortable. And it's true that when the new phone arrived at home, I couldn't wait to turn it on and almost damaged it before even starting it, so great was the absence of my modern man binomial. But it's also true that I decided to take advantage of the new situation to make different choices, install only the apps I actually use, and avoid those that keep me glued to the phone for hours, draining my energy and overloading me with stimuli.
So far, it's working. I'm managing to work longer on my projects, stay more focused, and even sleep a bit better. But above all, I've understood that disconnecting from social media is a good way to find time for what I enjoy.
This image was generated with artificial intelligence and is inspired by a trend of other similarly generated images that I've seen promoted by a fairly followed photography social channel. Maybe we'll talk about it in the future.
