Dear First name / friend
A friend of mine has just bought a Nokia 3310. I remember the first phone I had was a MyV55. It was silver but had these curvy black lines that made it look kind of sleek. I remember being with a friend from primary school and I had managed to sneak one of my sister's old phones out of the house and into my teeny-tiny, pointless handbag. We spent the afternoon in the Safeways cafe making fake calls to fake boyfriends on a phone that didn't work; it was thrilling. We still tease my sister for losing her phone when she fell in the river at Henley regatta; I remember losing my Blackberry in a Starbucks on the second day I had it and how angry my dad was at me (it wasn't yet insured).
From the thrilling snap of the Motorola Razr to the first taste of instant messaging on BBM, we all have a story about our devices. So why has my friend bought a Nokia 3310? He's also investing in a digital camera and re-accustoming himself to learning to read maps when travelling. I think they call it ‘slow living’.
It's a way of resetting boundaries and prioritising what is important. We're all suckers for dopamine-based thrills: bright, colourful, fast-moving pictures that dominate our screens; 10-second reels that play one after the other after the other on our phones. Suddenly, the black and white pages of a book seems boring; uninteresting; un-captivating and dull. (Is it really any surprise that our rates of ADHD diagnosis are at an all-time high?)
Recently, I've had to limit my own screen-intake due to suboptimal sleep. I don't read as much as I used to because my primal brain is screaming for the dopamine hit of fast-paced TV drama. I want to curb my own addiction to screens, because it doesn't feel natural. Think about what you would have been doing on Friday evening 50 years ago? 100 years ago? The world has changed so much and our greedy brains lap it up, often to our own detriment: have we lost the ability to be still? Focussed? Present? To go to sleep without a sleep story or the sound of artificial rain?
I'm going to Waterstones today to buy a copy of Johann Hari's Stolen Focus; I've been thinking about it for a while. But I'm also going to find some really good fiction to sink my teeth into, because I want to learn to love a screenless life as much as I love episodes of The Office.
Mindful moment: How can you embrace slow-living to allow your brain some respite and some calm? Can you remove Whatsapp notifications and only check your messages or emails at perhaps two distinct times in your day? Are you able to recognise the dopamine hit you get from your device? Perhaps the real Y2K revolution we need isn't the baggy cargo pants and tiny handbags, but choosing phone calls over messages, reserving TV only for the living room and only doing emails at your computer. I love the idea of buying a stove-top kettle to help each cup of tea become a ritual rather than a race (but I've got an electric hob so we'll have to put that one on the back-burner).
As I travel to Athens this weekend for a long-overdue weekend with my two best friends, I'll be using the map from the guidebook and my Instax camera for photos. What will you choose?
