For over two years, I had what you might call a not-so-smart phone. It was the kind of phone Wal-Mart doesn’t even see fit to put in the glass case. They just hang the box up somewhere below the phone personalization stickers and to the left of the charger cords. It did the necessities: talk, text, email. Other than those things, the memory was so small, you couldn’t really load any apps on it. I had been using an iPhone for years and this $30 phone was Android-based; which meant I had to learn how to use a cell phone all over again.
The memory on this phone was so small, I had to delete apps to load new ones and then delete the new app in order to reload the old one I used more often. It’s not like the memory was taken up by tons of pictures either. The camera resolution looked like I had paid $30 for a phone… because I did. There was no music at all on my phone. I’m pretty sure loading just half of Don McLean’s American Pie would cause the phone to gain a couple ounces. Pandora? Ha! I would have had to delete my Handyman Calculator, my Triangle Calculator, and the Maps app to make room. I would be dead in the water without my triangle calculator. I’m a guy, so I never use the Maps app anyway. Who needs directions?
I have to be honest, when you have a not-so-smart phone, you begin to develop a bit of phone envy. You start looking at other people’s phones and thinking to yourself, “I bet they have Pandora loaded on that and a triangle calculator at the same time.” Spoiled brats.
You can imagine my excitement when my brother sent me his “old” iPhone 6S. A quick word of advice, if you give anyone, including your relatives, an old phone, make sure it’s wiped and won’t resync to your cloud storage. My brother forgot to make sure his old phone wouldn’t sync back up when it was restarted and all his apps and contacts loaded. I took the opportunity to call his new in-laws and have a few toasts of Grand Marnier via Facetime. Maybe one day we’ll post the official Donovan toast on the blog. It’s a good one.
Once I got the phone cleared up, I made sure it did the basic three: talk, text, email. It did! Awesome! Now what? I looked at the phone storage and only about 2% of it was taken. I was afraid to load an app for fear that the storage would fill up. Also, it’s an iPhone, so I had to learn how to use a cell phone all over again. I navigated to the App Store and loaded my first app, a triangle calculator. By now, you can guess what the second app I loaded was. It was glorious! I loaded Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, Square, Minion Rush, Connect Four, and Fruit Ninja. I checked my storage and only 12% of 64 GB was taken! A new day has begun!
It used to be when I came home from work, I’d put my phone on airplane mode and drop it like a bad habit. It didn’t do anything fun. But now, I have a phone that can do everything. Now, when I have time off, I can check my Facebook, see if anyone has commented on my first few Instagram pictures, make sure I got my daily reward for logging in to Minion Rush – maybe even play a couple or 7 levels. Oh, and let’s not forget how fast the internet loads. I can watch YouTube videos for days!
In the meantime, my wife and my kids get a lot more “face time” with the male-patterned bald spot on the top of my head. My wife talks less to me, because she knows I don’t multi-task well and am pretty focused on whatever happens to be on my new iPhone screen at the moment. My kids are asked to quiet down because this YouTube video is very important – “I just need to finish this…”
How long until my kids develop a little phone envy themselves, “Stupid smart phone.”
Technology has so many benefits, but it will never replace a beer with a friend, a hug from your children, or a date night with your significant other. I appreciate my smart phone very much, but I love my family. It didn’t take long before I remembered my priorities. Whatever is on that screen will still be on that screen later. That second that just passed, it’s gone for good. Be careful how you spend it.