Tazia Machl, Staff Writer
As I aimlessly navigate through the outskirts of Janesville, Wisconsin, I am gripped with a chilling realization: I don’t have a map.
The iPhone that I had relied on for music, communication, and GPS, is now locked in a safe back in my hometown—a fact I had completely overlooked before embarking on a spontaneous drive before class. All I had was a Nokia with no internet capabilities and a faint recollection that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. For the first time in my adult life, I was truly lost.
A week prior, in a moment of rage brought upon by “subtweets,” sleepless nights spent reading opinions about Taylor Swift, and an excessive, twenty hours commitment to Clash Royale, I made a decision that would reshape my life: to buy a Nokia 225, a phone with minimal features beyond basic calls and texts.
The choice to join the “flip-phone February” movement was not an easy one. Throughout January, my screen time had averaged nine hours per day. Whether in class, after waking up, instead of sleeping, and even while sleeping, my phone dominated my life—the repercussions of which crossed lines far beyond inconvenience.
Like many who enjoy constant access to technology, I had become devoured by the allure of constant accessibility offered by smartphones. How could I resist? To carry the world in your pocket is an undeniable marvel. Yet, I found myself questioning: is mental and spiritual freedom worth the price?
Sitting in my college’s dining hall with nothing but Nokia’s version of Crossy Road to entertain me, I observed as everybody’s eyes were intertwined with their phones. In a room with dozens of people, the silence should have been a phenomenon. Before abandoning the smartphone lifestyle, I myself never would have recognized the issue. With every passing day of liberation, I felt myself growing more observant, more social, and more active. Hours once squandered on social media were replaced with reading and hiking. Walking to class savoring the blossoming spring around me became a far nicer alternative to burying my head in my phone, scrolling through Instagram DM’s that are better left unanswered.
While I was physically lost in Janesville, I was finally en route to finding myself.
The decision to leave the smartphone behind was fueled by a variety of factors: most notably, the addictive menace on society that is social media.
Social media had fundamentally altered my perception of life and the treatment of precious moments. Every wonderful experience seemed incomplete without an attached photograph or Snapchat story. An insatiable urge to post and show off overshadowed moments of romance and friendship. It felt as if my life was no longer my own; instead, every action I took was filtered through the lens of sensationalism.
For the perfect Instagram picture, I ran a 375 degree iron through my hair. I spent thirty minutes meticulously powdering and contouring, creating a mask that was loved more than the skin beneath. For the perfect picture, I posed with my hand squeezing into my waist. I adjusted the brightness, then the contrast, then saturated, then unsaturated, then sighed at my ugliness, before finally pressing “post” with trembling hands.
I followed this ritual with a nice two-hour dive into Instagram reels: videos of fatal car crashes and flat Earth propaganda which are disguised as rest and relaxation. The first video I saw was of a tall model walking the runway, captioned in red print, “nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.”
The correlation between body dysmorphia and social media has been extensively proven, with nearly 90% of women admitting to comparing their bodies to those showcased on social media. The persistent promotion of unrealistic and unattainable body standards, fueled by filters and editing, has blurred the lines between normal human bodies and their artificial renditions. The consequences, especially amongst adolescent girls, are disastrous.
Thus, it comes as no surprise that an Instagram reel can turn three meals a day into one, nor that a growing amount of children experience issues correlated with negative body image. A five-inch rectangle in our pockets serves as a constant reminder of perceived inadequacies. With the constant accessibility to better bodies, better minds, and better lives, it’s no wonder that I viewed withering away as a path to self-transcendence. When crippled with a social media addiction, I didn’t believe I could be happy until taking the perfect, most Instagrammable picture.
At two a.m. with class looming in six hours, I abandon any hope of sleep. According to some Twitter users and Youtube videos, our world is rapidly coming to an end. Nightly doom scrolling has replaced prayer. After all, why focus on personal dilemmas when the apocalypse is imminent? Hopefully, I remember thinking, the apocalypse will happen before final’s week.
Information gathered during a twenty-minute period:
The elites are out to get you. The oceans are rising, and you will drown. Taylor Swift is a government psyop. You will watch the world implode from the comfort of Instagram live. You will watch the world explode and you will be powerless in fighting the flames.
Doomscrolling, a relatively new concept in mental health research, describes the habit of scrolling and seeking out disheartening and negative news. As the New York Times’ Kevin Roose describes, doomscrolling is, “falling into deep, morbid rabbit holes filled with content, agitating myself to the point of physical discomfort, erasing any hope of a good night’s sleep.”
Over time, doom scrolling exacerbates depression and anxiety. It disrupts sleep. It creates a bleak worldview where everything is hopeless, and all we can do is passively observe its end on Twitter.
Since switching to the Nokia, I now wake up at two a.m. and simply fall back asleep. By cutting off access to social media and sticking to print newspapers and the occasional 5 p.m. TV news broadcasts, feelings of anxiety regarding the Earth’s future have mainly subsided.
To be clear, I am still dedicated to staying informed—just because I am not consuming four hours worth of mass extinction content a day does not mean the issue has suddenly disappeared. However, allowing myself distance from a constant barrage of graphic content and sensationalized political conflicts has provided me with much needed perspective. After all, those hours once spent doom scrolling are far better spent volunteering at a nature conservatory or joining an environmental action club. Leaving social media does not equate to leaving the world for someone else to fix. Leaving social media and smartphone fixations means allowing yourself to see the world in its purest form—then, you’ll want to fix it even more.
My reliance on my iPhone had torn me in two. Years of my life had been tainted by a device marketed as helpful yet engineered for addiction. The decision to leave it behind can be viewed as an act of rebellion, an edgy attempt to form some counterculture that flaunts flip-phones and MP3 players. In my case, however, switching to the Nokia was what I had to do to keep myself together and live life to its fullest.
There was the real me, and then there was my Snapchat. There was me—a poet who longed to make life an art and who turned mundane grocery shopping trips into the epitome of romance. Alongside this version existed another—an objectifying goblin who would scroll through Hinge seeking snippets of synthetic love.
There was me, grappling with insecurity, an eating disorder, and general messiness. Abstaining from grains or sugar out of spite and yearning of occupying a different body—I was crumbling. Then, there was the persona who existed on my Instagram page—confident, assertive, a badass who I felt I could never truly embody.
There was the world, beautiful in its rising spring, tranquil by the riverside, filled with more love and kindness than could ever be expressed. Then, there was the world portrayed by Twitter—a world of bleakness, heartlessness, and impending doom.
The smartphone itself cannot be blamed for such chaotic duality—yet, it does give its users constant accessibility to the worst and fakest aspects of humanity that the world could offer. When I left my iPhone behind, locking it up in my childhood home, I had reclaimed power over my life and my perception of the world.
Of course, it came as a challenge. My 75 Spotify playlists had to be manually converted into MP3 files. I cannot receive images through the Nokia. My friends now email me their Snapchat stories. Typing is a pain. Information is no longer immediate. Some parking meters require you to scan a QR code to pay. The world is building itself around smartphones—refusing to partake comes at a cost. The constant accessibility and entertainment offered by a smartphone is as remarkable as it is dangerous. To leave it behind meant finding peace beyond what I once thought was possible.
The third day after switching to a Nokia, it seemed as if winter had heaved her last breath. The sun rose hot above me, and I decided to skip class time in exchange for a hike through a local nature preserve.
I used to despise the barren landscape of the forest in February. Yet, walking through without any possible distractions, I finally saw the subtle beauty within its state of rebirth. Blooming on the corner of the path was a skunk cabbage: Wisconsin’s first spring flower. Instinctively, I reached for my phone to take a picture. When I quickly realized a picture is impossible, I no longer cared. Instead, I took my sweet time observing the newborn plant, in awe over all that it symbolizes. That moment has ingrained itself in my memory, and that moment is only mine.
Featured Image Credit: T-Mobile
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