Nagging & pulling my attention. Funny thing is, it isn't the kids.

As a kid I ran to the mailbox for new tech flyers. Best Buy. Future Shop. Radio Shack.

I was in.

Maybe a product of the years I grew up. During my formative years tech was in full explosive swing. Evolving faster than anything before.

I had to have my hands on the latest and greatest. Experience every new thing I could. From pocket organizers and getting all my friends’ landline phone numbers, to installing and modding my MSN messenger.

This naturally led to smartphones one day after a journey through many flip phones, which led to apps, and wanting to be on the bleeding edge of what was capable of our pocket computers.

I took it one step further and enrolled in and completed “App design and Development” in college.

Over time I grew to hate the phone that I loved so much, but I didn’t know why. It offered so much opportunity.

What is it I don’t like here?

Today I realized what it was.

I have experimented with going back to the days of basic dumbphones as people call them, but the FOMO was always too strong, or I’d NEED an app for something. I tried a Nokia back in 2014ish and couldn’t do it. I tried several dumbphones and putting up barriers of use.

I could never make it stick.

This time was a little different. I read “Digital Minimalism” by Cal Newport and he had the linguistic ability to put to words what I couldn’t figure out. He framed it as the trade off not being worth the attention these phones demand. (I recommend everyone give this book a read)

I decided to give it another try.

I was headed to a barber shop, so I brought a smartphone along tethered to my horrible little dumbphone, so I could show the barber what I wanted. The notifications were incessant and gave the same feeling of exasperation when the kids need 1000% of my attention.

The difference is, I never loved my phone.

So we’ll see, but this time a simple talk and text only phone may just do the trick. I want to save all my exasperation for the kids.