Slow Living: Life with a dumbphone

Editors’ Note: This article is part of the Patheos Public Square on Slow Living. Read other perspectives here.

I am a proud owner of the LG 410 Xpression. You won’t find reviews of it on CNET, because it is the world’s most boring phone. It has a slide-out QWERTY keypad, which is the main reason I chose it over a classic flip phone. Its 2-megapixel camera is not earning any awards, and when I try to send photos via text, it mostly fails.

My dumbphone does two things: it calls and it texts. That’s it.

Oh, and it takes pictures of my cat, which I alone can squint at.

Not having a smartphone has downsides. I get lost more often than you do, I’m sure of it. I get stuck in traffic, too. I can’t take photos without getting out a camera, which means I don’t take photos.

Though one could argue that getting lost can offer unexpected upsides, like stumbling upon a food truck or a new route to work, there are no benefits to being stuck in traffic. Nor is there some secret plus to having no photos of me and my husband from the last year.

And yet, I think I’m better off without one. “Slow living” to me means that I respond to my email only when I’m at my computer. It means I go whole weekends without signing into Gmail. It means I don’t feel obligated to move at someone else’s pace–that just because other people respond within in minutes doesn’t mean that I have to.

I know I wouldn’t like being able to get my email all the time. My email includes a lot of rejections from publications that I pitch, the occasional update from my agent about my manuscript, and alerts about comments from this blog. I don’t really want to find out that a post I poured my heart and soul into has gotten a snarky reaction while I’m out to dinner with my husband. I also don’t want to find out that a publication I was *sure* would take my latest masterpiece has said no, thank you, while I’m taking a walk.

I care a lot about my work; it’s personal, and it’s important to me. It takes up a lot of my headspace: I wake up in the middle of the night and realized I misspelled an interview-ee’s name. I dream up new projects on my vacations.

I don’t need it to take over the time I’m taking a break from it.

It’s hard to reconcile separating my work from my life because I care so much about both. I see my writing as one of my purposes on this planet. And yet, without some separation, I go insane. I feel like I am always “on,” that I don’t have time for anything besides writing and working. What am I doing going on a hike? What am I doing just staring out the window while my husband drives?

But this purposeless time, this empty space, gives my life its pleasant pace. I have real breaks in my day; when I am on the bus, I’m just sitting on the bus. When I’m waiting in line at the post office, I’m just waiting in line.

Ok, so sometimes I’m texting.

Still, I feel good not knowing what Candy Crush is. I feel relaxed not being able to take a selfie when I get to the ballpark. I’m under no obligations to anyone when I’m out; I can just enjoy whatever is going on. I think I’m a better person for not having a smartphone; there’s no way that I would be able to resist the ping of a new email. I know, because none of my friends can resist it.

I don’t hate all technology; I have an iPad and even an old iPod Touch. But I hate technology that makes us think we are more important than we are. The world will turn just fine without me; it’s done it before, and it will do it again.