I placed a few small fabric baskets in the kitchen. These are cell phone beds. This is where my phone stays most of the day. If it is not in my pocket, I don’t check it all the time. This weekend I also turned down my phone for most of the day Saturday. I only answered the most pressing texts. I kept it off during my date with Richard. By eleven o’clock, someone had decided I must be on vacation because I didn’t respond to her texts immediately. I don’t think I should have to be on call all of the time, but the reality is that people expect it because we all carry cell phones. When I take a break, I come back to messages wondering where I am, wondering if I have completed a task, and news, usually bad. Sometimes, I really don’t like my phone.
What do you think about this video? The narrowing sliver of time to create? The absence of stopping cues in social media? Of our tendency to visit sites that make us unhappy three times more often than those that do make us happy? Where do you draw lines with your phone use?