The Best 25 Bucks I Ever Spent

Earlier this year (I don’t re­mem­ber the ex­act day or month) I de­cided, screw it, I’m go­ing to try us­ing a flip phone. For years I’ve won­dered what it was like be­fore the in­for­ma­tion rev­o­lu­tion, but as a Zoomer, I’ve never had the op­por­tu­nity.

I got the cheap­est Verizon-compatible flip phone Amazon had to of­fer and I com­mit­ted my­self to us­ing it ex­clu­sively for at least a week. A week with­out the en­tirety of hu­man knowl­edge in my pocket. A week of us­ing my voice to com­mu­ni­cate, rather than a touch-screen key­board.

Beside two fac­tor au­then­ti­ca­tion for GitHub, that first week was a breeze. I found my­self so­cial­iz­ing more, since it turns out that most peo­ple in my so­cial cir­cle are just a phone call and a 10-minute walk away. I also found my­self read­ing bet­ter qual­ity lit­er­a­ture. Rather than re­sort­ing to HackerNews to ease my bore­dom, I be­gan de­vour­ing full books at a fright­en­ing pace. That first week turned into two, then four, then twelve. All the while, I was prov­ing to my­self that I did­n’t need a smart­phone.

For a num­ber of rea­sons, I’m back to us­ing a smart­phone. But this ex­pe­ri­ence has taught me some im­por­tant lessons that I don’t think can be taught any other way.

Organizing so­cial en­coun­ters over text just does­n’t work.

Some peo­ple don’t check their phone too of­ten. Call­ing them make it clear that their par­tic­i­pa­tion is im­por­tant to you. This may sound triv­ial or ob­vi­ous to some of the older mem­bers of my au­di­ence, but to pretty much every Zoomer I’ve talked to about this, it is a rev­e­la­tion.

Quiet is sa­cred, and should be pro­tected.

I see loads of peo­ple who walk around every day with their head­phones in, barely pay­ing at­ten­tion to the mu­sic blar­ing out of them. I’ve done this my­self. It closes you off the world. From the tap­ping of wa­ter off an ici­cle. From the shaky but warm greet­ing from a col­league. From the chortling roar of an en­gine.

But most of all, it closes you off from your own mind. The best think­ing and imag­in­ing hap­pens in the quiet, when your brain has noth­ing more stim­u­lat­ing to do.

Overall, us­ing a flip phone was a very qui­et­ing ex­pe­ri­ence. It helped the world feel larger and more mag­i­cal.