I just turned 30. I’m not sure if that has anything to do with my recent paradigm shift of sorts. Maybe it has something to do with Edward Snowden- also 30- and his unprecedented decision to out the NSA and their dastardly doings. Perhaps it’s because I’m about to graduate with a degree and I have no idea what I want to do with my life, compounded by the unpleasant, sneaking suspicion that I might not know who I am anymore. And the chances of me figuring it out in my current state are dismal at best.
My current state: My phone is rarely out of my hand for a millisecond. It has a well-worn spot on my bed next to my pillow where it charges while I sleep. In the morning, it wakes me up. After pressing snooze the maximum number of times before I’m unforgivably late, the first thing I do is tap and swipe through the multitude of notifications that have inevitably appeared overnight on my device. Before my morning routine is complete, I must tap through text messages, bank alerts, Facebook notifications, Facebook messages, emails, news alerts, weather alerts, app updates, and game requests. But wait! There’s more! l forgot about 6oogle Hangouts messages, Yahoo emails and LinkedIn updates. “You have received a Snapchat message!” “Someone said something on Twitter, which was re-tweeted by someone you know!” “Someone has just Whispered in your area!” “Someone somewhere did something and it is imperative that you know about it RIGHT NOW!”
Sigh.
I cannot start my day with a clear head until every last bit of red on my home screen has been removed and my notification bar is empty. Sometimes this takes a half hour. Whatever time is left after this process is complete I spend lurching around in slow motion, tying shoelaces, excavuating homework assignments and acquiescing the requests of my very vocal cat.I perform these tasks on autopilot because my mind is inevitably somewhere else–specifically, my mind is on my phone, and even though my phone is most likely in my hand, ready to notify me at the slightest hint of activity in cyberspace, I keep unlocking the screen and absently tapping around, looking for any pertinent info I might have missed. Never mind that I’m missing my 6 year old daughter whistling for the first time after 3 weeks of agonizingly unsuccessful tries. Never mind that l’m tragically unaware that my 9 year old son has stuffed his guinea pig into his backpack because I wasn’t listening when he asked if Elephant’s cage was an essential part of Bring-Your-Most-Obnoxious-And/Or-Fragile-Pet-to-School-Day. I’m too busy mentally penning a shockingly brilliant reply to a decidedly uproarious political post on Facebook while photographing a stain on the kitchen floor which suspiciously resembles Elvis for upload to my various image-sharing accounts. Before you know it, it’s five to eight and the kids are going to have to suffer through school lunches because I forgot (again) to make them sack lunches. They’ve probably been up for several hours, incidentally, compared to the fifteen minutes l’ve likely been fully conscious. I’d feel guilty about all this, but I simply don’t have the time.
Why don’t I have the time? Funny you should ask, as I was just wondering that myself. Part of the problem is that the sheer volume of notifications that I receive throughout my day is dizzying. I have to keep my phone on silent at all times. Eventually, I figured out how to turn off LED notifications as well – because if I hadn’t taken these steps, I’d probably be drooling on myself in a padded room somewhere, inevitably crying about my phone, my phone, where’s my fucking phone I need my phone. I need my phone, you see, because at any given moment, someone or something is demanding my attention. Read on, brave fellow phone addict or thoroughly disgusted yet distressingly curious lost person who stumbled upon this long-winded diatribe of phone-induced woe in their search for something totally innocent like a new case for their brand new pho – hey! Whatcha got there? Oh. Well two processors are ok, but I haven’t been impressed by anything under four in AT LEAST two weeks. Moving on.
Where was I? Oh yes! Attention! This is, I have learned, what makes the world go ’round. And my attention is in short supply these days. How did this happen? Who are these people texting me, and why- oh why– do they never cease?
Tune in tomorrow to find out the shocking answer to this, and other exciting information, like: “What kind of phone do I have?” and “Am I an Apple person or an Android person?” as well as “Am I SURE l’m not an Apple person? (because I really sound like one!)” and more!
opheliaorion 