Scarpernautics

A piece I wrote for New Escapologist’s “Scarpernautics” column — on ditching the smartphone, why it messed with my head as a teenager, and what I switched to instead. Originally published in Issue 18: “The Time of Your Life.”

I was about thirteen years old when I got my first iPhone and twenty-three years old when I purchased my first Nokia. The ten years in-between were confusing and emotional, naturally. But by the end of my smartphone usage, I was certain that the extremes to which I experienced these typical teenage emotions was largely a result of near-constant use of social media and the internet.

What was meant to connect us, at least in my experience, created distance between other people and I. The allure of the smartphone regularly took me out of the present moment, and away from the physical world I was inhabiting. Moments with potential for connection, like sitting at a bus stop next to a stranger, became moments where I would disappear into my phone to avoid the slightly awkward silence of sharing a space with another person.

On Instagram I would see people doing cooler things than I was — people who I’ll likely never meet — which would in turn feed insecurities about myself. On Snapchat my friends and I would send photos of our faces every day, without any text, to anxiously keep our “streaks.” Even on Spotify I began to feel overwhelmed by the endless supply of music, which I would never have enough time to listen to.

Read the rest in New Escapologist, Issue 18, available here.