It’s been five months since I have dumped my android phone. It just now occurred to me that my unplugging, though inadvertent, is an odd thing in a world embracing increasing connectedness and immersive technologies. Suspecting that this could be an important milestone of my life, I reflect here on how this change came about and has played out so far.

It started when my phone screen died and unlike the last time, would not revive by tinkering the LCD flex cable. I was told that I’d have to have my screen replaced and should not expect to find a cheap or an original one. The idea of a pricy, unoriginal screen for my phone put me off so much that I postponed the job altogether, and decided to use my Nokia set for all practical purposes until I found a way out. Leaving the mobile repair shop without my phone fixed felt like I was botching my entire life over a silly Quality concern (yes, Pirsig’s voice from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance has been a loudspeaker in my head over these past couple of months – more on that later). But like a lot of my life’s decisions that I have taken against my better judgment and that have taken me places, I decided to venture into the great dreaded unknown of the android-less existence anyway.

Since my workplace applications run on internal servers and networks, it didn’t hurt professionally to not have a handheld device 100% of the time. With no professional obligations at stake, I realized my life was not that botched as I had thought after all and the practical purposes the Nokia set was to suffice were not coming out of Pandora’s Box either. Soon the day’s routines were being met through good ol’ messages and calls. What followed from there was a gradual, convenient resettling into old, familiar ways. Considering that I had bought my first android phone in 2015 which I was also robbed splendidly of the very first day, I didn’t have decades of addiction to feel substantial withdrawal symptoms. Though I now felt ’emptiness’ at times, it only led me to think more independently; something that I now realize I had hardly been doing anything of lately in the notification- and ad-driven frenzy that even a tech-conservative like me was not totally immune to. At the risk of sounding like a tech-cursing twentieth-century ancestral spirit, let me just say here that life is not a dopamine-fueled dragon ride all the time and one must learn that at some point in one’s life.

Have I become a tech-hater now? Absolutely not. I think that tech has helped us understand and solve complex problems, reduce social disparities and elevate lifestyles in general, and to discard it altogether because of its latent dangers would be unfair, at best. Instead, a more sound approach would be to approach technology in a selective way. You pick all that’s good and leave out all that’s not. For that, you need to analyse what works for you and hence, is good for you and what doesn’t, and hence, is bad. For me, immersiveness is the true villain in the tech-story. As long as we are at the wheel, technology can be a pretty exciting and empowering friend to have. The whole problem of tech is its control issues because it doesn’t let you be at the wheel for long. Soon a notification pops up here and an ad there, and poooof, you’re an Alice in Wonderland. Once you remove mobile phone from the context, you take away half the tech’s immersiveness, making it an acceptable bargain.

What difference has going off-the-grid made for me? I think this is an important question and I am still crafting a reply to it. Without a phone, I have loads of time on my hands that I’m still figuring out how to use constructively. Connectedness is going to be the chief challenge, I guess, since I am still struggling to keep in touch with people I really care about five months out.

But I am certain I’ll find a way.