February 6, 2015 - Written by: Shiraz Engineer

Throw Away Your Television! (Or at Least Your Mobile for an Hour).

When I was in 6^th Form, Miss Cook told her class that she didn’t have a telly. You can imagine the horrified gasps of fifteen Fresh Prince-obsessed girls echoing around the classroom. But this had given one of my schoolmates, Sarah, an idea – as a self-confessed telly addict, she would attempt to give up her favourite shows for two weeks to see how it felt to be without something she thought she needed so badly in her life.

During an assembly, Sarah told us how she spent the first few days immediately regretting her little experiment. Without Friends, she was desperately lonely. Without Lost, she didn’t know where to go. But as time went on, she realised that she now had so much more time to do other things – read a book, paint a picture, play games with her family.

All of these activities gave her so much joy that even though she did eventually go back to watching telly, she no longer relied on it as her sole source of happiness.

Sarah’s transformation all those years ago has been rolling round my head for the last month. I have become increasingly aware that I spend far too much time in front of a screen, be it my computer at work, on my phone on my commute, or in front of the television in the evening until I go to bed.

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I just have to know if my boyfriend has WhatsApped me, if there’s been a BBC News bulletin in the 6 minutes since I last looked at my phone, and I yearn for my lunch break so that I can sit in a corner and tackle a few more rounds of Candy Crush Soda Saga. Those poor gummy bears MUST be SAVED!

We’re all guilty of this.

Even though my eyes feel incredibly strained at the end of each day, I just cannot seem to switch off and entertain myself without technology. There’s always something to watch or play or comment on – I just can’t resist taking a digital swipe at that idiot woman who thinks feminism is a delusion. Arguing with strangers is far better than getting lost in a thrilling novel… right?

But what on earth are we doing to ourselves?! We inwardly criticise parents who give their one-year-olds their phones to play with in their pram, but we’re just as bad because we’ve all got our eyes glued to our screens. When one person pulls out their phone at a table, everyone around them does the same. Being on your phone amongst friends has become a bonding activity, yet in reality, it’s one of the most anti-social things you can do. We actually check up on our friends’ news on Facebook at the same time as sitting next to our other friends in the flesh.

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How crazy is that?! It’s our collective wasting of time with games, Facebook videos and idle banter that I am getting concerned about, when we could be spending that time feeling and experiencing the world around us.

Now, I’m in no way saying that we all need to abandon our smart phones and get back to not being able to find the right bus home from town, but it’s time we each took a long hard look at how attached we are to technology. After all, when your phone dies on a night out, all you’re left with is a block of metal that’s only good for propping up a wobbly table.

So I have tried to stick to a couple of habits that have helped me step away from my phone addiction, and they might help get you started, too.

The first thing I do is put my phone in my coat pocket at work rather than have it next to me or in my jeans pocket, so I don’t hear or feel it buzz. This has resulted in a remarkable increase in my work ethic and focus – out of sight, out of mind. I check it at intervals but I always feel more productive without it distracting me.

I also like to take a book with me wherever I go. Seeing a book whenever I open my handbag is a constant reminder that I should be reading. My commute is a good 15 minutes, so I’ll always have a bit of time to lap up a few pages of my novel. And each time I choose my book over my phone, I always end up having a more satisfying start to my day.

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Why don’t I do this more, then? The truth is, I’m still working on it. I find it very hard to be away from my phone, but whenever I force myself to put it away, I find that life’s tiny experiences make my days all the more rich.

To round off Sarah’s account of her personal journey that morning, Miss Cook stood up and said something that has always stayed with me:

‘Girls – one day, everyone in this room will be dead. And when each of us has our last moments, we won’t be regretting which episodes of Sex and the City we missed. We’ll only regret the time we did not spend pursuing the important things in life’.

Well… Although I’m very glad I caught the grand finale of Desperate Housewives, Miss C is absolutely right. We now need to transfer this pearl of wisdom to our phone use.

So next time you find your eyes are strained but you just cannot stop trying to burst that witch’s bubbles, catch yourself, pop your phone in your pocket and look up. You might see something, however small, that you’ll be glad you witnessed.

If you enjoyed this article, why not check out ‘Red Lightey, No Life-y? The Perils (or Joys) of No Internet‘?