Hello My Imaginary Friends,
We recently went on a vacation to Paris. After looking into the roaming plans and their cost, we decided to leave our phones at home for the vacation.
I knew it would bug me, but I had no idea how or how I’d react.
A little background before we begin. I haven’t been without a cellphone since 2002. In high school, I was the dork with the digital organizer. I had an HTC-Dream in 2009 and remember Android 1.6 Cupcake. All that tells you I’m a little of a gadget nerd and haven’t been far from the convenience in almost a decade.
Like most people my age, I rarely make phone calls with my phone. Only when I have to or if I want to speak with my older relatives.
What I didn’t miss
I expected to miss the constant social connection of my phone, but it’s the part I missed the least. It was actually kind of nice to disconnect and ignore things that weren’t important.
I’m a little bit of a digital hoarder. Take for exemple that before this trip I had a mailing list subscription to TeeFury in 3 of my 5 emails.
The vacation and only being able to clean out my facebook and email once a day, sometimes less, gave me the push I needed to start cleaning out subscriptions, groups, and even a few friends.
What I have now is a quarter the amount of incoming emails and a lot less of an urge to check my phone every four seconds.
What I did miss but was glad I didn’t have
The camera on my phone is exceptional and I have a nasty habit of relying on it too much. I have a fantastic Mirrorless SLR and need to use it more often. No matter how good your phone’s camera is, at the moment, an SLR will be much better.
This forced me to reach into my bag and grab the camera instead of just pulling out my phone.
What I missed
Being able to search for random information, directions, locations, and even identify landmarks; was something I truly missed about my phone.
The ability to pull out my phone and be told what a landmark is and its history is extremely useful. Being able to ask where to find the closest café is extremely useful. Being able to find out the hours of operations for business over a holiday is useful.
I have terrible handwriting so being able to write a list for groceries on my phone is something that I love. The list is shared with my wife so if she forgets something while I’m out, she can add it to the list no problem.
Despite being French Canadian, there was a language barrier and some words I had no idea what they meant. It would have been nice to have a universal translator in my pocket for shopping.
We went to Paris with my in-laws and being able to separate without detailed plans of where and when to meet is something I greatly missed.
I also missed being able to listen to music, read, play games, and jot down ideas.
I still think that the roaming is excessively expensive, but I sure missed the convenience of having my phone.
Éric
I abuse the ‘do not disturb’ function on my phone an awful lot. I really don’t mind being without it. I didn’t have a mobile phone, though, until just a few years ago, so there’s that.
In March, we brought our phones to Europe for the cameras (mainly) and to use in airbnbs on the free wifi. It was a good balance for us. + my husband played sudoku while on trains or waiting in airports. (not necessarily with wifi available). Coordinating meeting spots can be tricky but it used to be like that all the time! We did have the benefit of our son, who is living there, having a data plan, so he could check the bus schedule or message us from wherever he was, once we were at our airbnb with wifi. I’d do the same again. I only started using a smartphone (but with no data plan) in January so I am still on the learning curve 🙂