I’m a terrible Millennial. If I had a choice, I’d only be a member of the Pepsi generation. Sadly, the media has made that Venn diagram permanent, so I am both.
Being a Millennial, I’m told, gives me the right to complain about the Millennial condition. And Millennials love to complain, so perhaps the media isn’t all wrong.
We are addicted to our smartphone devices and we’re usually paying too much for the service. That is, assuming we pay the bill ourselves in the first place. (Phones are usually one of the last socialized services parents cut off, just after health insurance and auto insurance.)
To see if I could cure my addiction, I recently went cold turkey for four months.
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A bit of background. You see, I was into Blackberries before it was cool (2004), making me a Blackberry hipster. Upon graduating from college, I went into the Blackberry-centric world of working on Capitol Hill in D.C., where I ended up with two Blackberries. A digital John Wayne at the OK Corral, ready to flip them out of my holsters and tap, tap away. After all, this is Washington and I have important thoughts to share.
Then, these newfangled iPhones and Androids came along. No keyboards? Not for me. I was loyal to the Crackberry.
After about four years, I caved, trading in my personal phone for an Android. It was a nice little device, but I quickly crammed it with apps to the point where I needed to delete 20 of them for my phone to work.
Not immune to peer pressure, Washington is a town that demands constant connectivity, making it hard to opt out of the always plugged-in culture. On Capitol Hill — where special wireless nodes provide perfect coverage in tunnels underground — you need to be constantly connected to the office when doing Walk & Talks and other Sorkin-esque things. (Never mind the fact that Walk & Talks were largely Blackberry-free on The West Wing.)
Having to be constantly connected, I thought, was something special to Capitol Hill or government. What was maybe once true isn’t true at all anymore. Kids these days are always connected, yet they wonder why they get their phones stolen when on public transportation. Easy answer: It’s because your smartphone isn’t smart enough to be situationally aware or smell fear… Yet.
I left Congress for the lucrative world of journalism, where I discovered that connectivity wasn’t as obsessed over as it was in Congress. When working the 2012 political conventions, I went to the Walmart near my place in Alexandria, Va., to buy a so-called “dumb phone.”
My thought was that I’d be running around like a crazy person for a week, and I’d need a phone with a long battery life. The phone cost $10, and didn’t need to be charged for days. (Remember those times so, so many years ago?)
I was right, and the dumb phone was a godsend. I never was out of touch, and thanks to Google Voice, all on one number! It didn’t take pictures, have sweet apps, or fancy displays. Sure, you can surf the web on a dumb phone, which is pointless, but it made calls and shot out texts like a reliable AK-47.
After the conventions were over, an older colleague inquired about the phone and I gave it away. If you love something, set it free and all that.
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After I gave away the dumb phone, I began to have doubts about my technology choices.
Still rocking a government employee discount without actually working for Uncle Sam, I looked at my bill each month. Was the value I got out of my Android’s plan really worth $80 a month? I barely used any data at all.
With my contract expiring, I made a bold choice in January to break up with my smart phone. More accurately, my smartphone plan.
At first, I felt like Tom Hanks in Castaway. But I quickly realized that wireless is pretty much everywhere, so if I really needed to check my email at the bar, I usually could. Many Americans are near wireless during 80 percent of their days, and for me, it really eliminated the absolute need for a smart phone plan.
But then, there are the calls.
Driving is where you lose out. And that’s where I found myself burning up the cellphone minutes, which are considerably more expensive than plan minutes. (Note to DC Police: I went hands free when I crossed into Moscow on the Potomac and never once did I text while driving.)
My four months without a smart phone plan were actually quite refreshing.
Nobody asks you to look anything up when you have a dumb phone. You don’t feel like you have a breakfast burrito in your pocket, warming your thigh / sending electrons whizzing around your delicate areas, leaving you wondering if your firstborn child will be part Android or part iPhone.
When you pay by the minute, you’re more conscious of the time you spend on the phone — each minute gives you a beep to let you know you’ve spent a dime. After a 14-minute phone call with an old colleague from Capitol Hill, I remarked to the other party with me on the speaker phone call that it was the best $1.40 I spent in a long time.
More and more, my bill crept upwards. One month, it was nearly $30 — nowhere near my old $80 a month, but still, enough to the point where I considered getting a contract for a dumb phone.
I’d considered getting one of these newfangled wifi-based phones offered by Republic or Scratch wireless, which offer cheaper plans to consumers because they force users to default to wifi-based calls when possible. They seemed like a good idea, and a decent fit for me. I’d get access to data when I need it, unlimited calls and text, all for $25 a month. I demurred, opting to stick with my dumb phone.
Some people can go without smartphones with no problem, but they’re usually the people who never get them in the first place. But, like any trendy diet — south beach, Atkins, or gluten free — I knew I was going to cave at some point. Access to data is a modern morphine. I got hits near and there with wifi, but what about when I was in rural areas that don’t have abundant free wifi like Washington?
I found out when visiting Piqua, Ohio with my family one weekend. Back at work there was a bit of a technological crisis, and here I was eating pizza like Peter Gibbons, none the wiser and happy to just be eating pizza. A few hours later, I got back to the bed and breakfast, poured myself a drink and fired up the tablet — only to be greeted by the horror of an email thread with 20 responses. Right then, I knew my experiment was over — I needed to get data on a device again.
Portable wifi hotspots were a nice option, but didn’t solve my thirst for phone minutes. So, I chose Republic wireless and one of those new-fangled wifi-based phones, and it’s really nice.
Perhaps I’ll be ahead of the curve like I was with the Blackberry, or perhaps this wifi-based calling concept will be a passing fad.
One thing’s for sure, I’m not giving away my dumb phone this time.
(Jim Swift is Assistant Editor at The Weekly Standard.)
