How To Use Your Phone Less

If you want to use your phone less you could go on date with someone from a dating app. You could think she's really cool and way out of your league. Halfway through the date she suggests you spend the rest of the afternoon at the Whitney together. When you enter the Manhattan bound L station at Jefferson Street she jumps the turnstile. You’ve forgotten that’s a thing people do. Your opinion of her soars. Later, she kisses you while you wait for the train to arrive. The relationship ends quietly. But you start jumping subway turnstiles to feel a shade of the excitement you did that day. You tell yourself you’re doing it in the name of good budgeting.

If you want to use your phone less you could invest in a crossbody sling bag. They’re very on trend for summer. If you buy it on clearance then that would be an actually virtuous budgeting move. It’s great for carrying your personal items when you don’t have the luxury of coat pockets. If you want to use your phone less you could start carrying it in the outer pocket of your new sling bag. This makes the device both easier to reach and store. Your phone is more distant somehow since it’s not in constant physical contact with your right thigh, as it was when carried in a hip pocket.

If you want to use your phone less you could start by removing the screen protector and case. Expose the device completely to the environment. You could get froyo with a friend in the East Village. As the evening winds down you could make your way to the Manhattan bound L train at First Ave. As you descend the stairs you see a wave a people coming towards you. The train is in the station. You could jump the turnstile. Your phone is in the outer pocket of your sling bag. Or it was. It might fly out of the unsealed pouch. You’re lunging for the closing door, trying to not to make eye contact with the train operator, whose employer you just robbed when you hear the smack of glass and metal square on the dirtiest tile floor to have ever existed. You could pick up the face down iPhone 11, a pocket sized supercomputer that has survived an entire pandemic and several cross country road trips, to find the front screen shattered. The doors close and the train departs the station without you on board.

Waiting for the next train hurts your patience. Touching the phone’s screen hurts your fingers. You might be afraid if you put it back in the sling, tiny shards of glass will break off and live inside the bag forever. The forward facing camera is compromised. Face ID doesn’t work. You have to type in the passcode to access the phone, touching broken glass by choice. Your fingers become raw. This makes you use your phone less.

Using your phone less lasts about 20 hours. You’re at the Apple Store reaching for your credit card (its in your wallet, which is in the sling bag). Buying a new phone that you will probably use more than the old one.