Given
some of the
conversations around here
lately, and in the spirit of
some past gauntlet challenges, I think it's time to throw down this particular gauntlet.
Because I know a lot of folks have wholly abandoned any sort of home phone line, I'm not proposing anything quite like turning your phone completely off and not using it
at all for an entire month. Note in the title that I deliberately used the term "mobile phone use". What I am proposing is a two-tiered challenge:
All cellphone users: If you leave the house, simply leave without the phone. I don't care where you're going, just don't take it with you. If you want to call or text someone, it has to wait until you're back home.
Smartphone (and data accessible feature phone) users: While you're at home, don't use your phone for any sort of network data access. Just turn off both the mobile data and WiFi. No social media (even if it's an SMS replacement to reduce texting costs), no web browsing, no streaming entertainment. If you want to load music or e-books onto the device, you have to do it physically through your computer's USB cable or an SD card.
Do this for a full 30 days. I will be participating (starting today), even though I use the device for work outside the house. If I need to check for messages left on my cellphone while out of the house, I will ask to borrow someone else's phone to check my voicemail remotely, or wait until I get back.
If your work pays for your phone and you need to use it as a tool due to being a road warrior or something, I'm not going to throw this challenge down to you to do it. Same goes for anyone who's deliberately carrying for safety reasons (no, GPS use doesn't count as a safety reason!). Everyone else? I encourage you to take up this challenge just to see how little you actually need your mobile phone.
Good luck!