I want to write a blog! I mean, I want to be the one to write a blog. I mean, I was just in the middle of reading a blog post and I was having all these thoughts and I had the urge to articulate them.
The post (really good, from a blog I love, I’m definitely not trying to argue with their thesis or premise) was about taking a walk without your phone. And I agree with the general sentiment: it feels novel and fun, and exciting even though we can all agree it’s silly to feel that way because everyone throughout the past (including me, till maybe ten years ago) used to take a phoneless walks as a matter of course!
There wasn’t actually really anything I disagreed with in the post. Just some of my own original thoughts that I wanted to say out loud in response:
1. I feel like there’s a general sense that it’s “good” to be phoneless and “bad” to feel weird without your phone. I reject this at a gut level but I also “get“ it and those feelings are at conflict inside me.
2. I think what’s interesting is that the main reason I feel “weird” without my phone on a walk in particular is that I am in the constant habit of sharing everything I encounter with my friends and loved ones. This thing to this person, that thing to that person. I can definitely see the pros and cons of this habit philosophically. The noteworthiest part is that I think of myself as someone who also often forgets to share things, like especially when I am interested in media, songs or artists or tv shows, I tend to rarely recommend or talk about them. Not for any real reason. Sometimes it just doesn’t occur to me until occasionally I’m like “oh yeah sharing!” But this is not the case for things I pass in the street on a walk. I always think of sharing those. This is further proof of my essential hunch that we are all very contradictory and hypocritical beings, and so it’s impossible to say “I am THIS kind of person” even though that’s a really tempting thing to do.
3. [ ] has been getting on my case lately for “being on my phone” a lot. I haven’t really gotten into it with her but it’s kind of frustrating because I think of myself as WAYYYY more restrained than she is with her phone. I realized recently I think I have my own internal rubric for when it’s rude to look at my phone and when it’s polite/acceptable, and I think it’s just really different from hers. For example, when we’re in the car and she’s driving I almost never look at my phone even if we’re not talking. And when we’re eating dinner, or just sitting together. Basically when I could be engaging in conversation with her (or anyone else) I refrain unless she or whomever pulls out their phone and starts scrolling. I spend a lot of time looking at it but only when it’s been established that that’s what we’re doing, or when she is busy. Then she will look at her phone the whole car ride when I’m driving…it’s clearly just a difference in assumptions about what is appropriate. Dating is weird
