No Smartphones, kiddo

“I’m lost”, said the child,

“I’m lost without direction. I can’t find which buses I’m supposed to hop on, I can’t call my dad, I can’t call my mom. I’m lost without direction.”

“I feel terrified”, said the girl,

“”I feel terrified and I feel scared. I’ve lost my disconnection to this world, that played out through my phone, social media, and without it I am too connected.

What can I do, stare at trees all day?”

“I’m calm,” said the grandad,

“I’m calm beyond measure. No more stress, headaches from using those smartphones, or trying to catch up with this speed of the high paced, young ruled world.

I’m free. And I’m calm beyond measure.”

“I feel beautiful on the inside.” Said grandmom, “I feel beautiful like God himself revealed his’ glory to me. A golden sun behind a cloud. A heart warming sunset, tomato hued sun upon a colorful sky, and all - for me? What if I do to deserve that beauty? Just, beautiful. There is no other way to put it. Wondrous. Enchanting. I feel like I’m living in a dream.”

“Oooofff”, The father said, “Oooofff I feel halved. The birds are chirping, I have more human connections, real ones, and I have deep, serendipitous conversations. But Oooofff I miss the novelty of those stupid phones.”

“Yay and Nay,” Said the mother, “Yay, my children are FINALLY talking to me. My teens, my tweens, my little children. We have quality time, we do things. But nay, they yell at me sometimes and I get hurt. Like motherfucker it hurts. I hurts like hell. Yay and Nay, I feel quite bad but I’m ok.”

“Well,” said God, “my children need those phones. But they’ve also learnt how to handle life. I remember the good old stupid phones days. Maybe we’ll return to these? When kids listened to music on it, but it was so scarce and rare that they found it enchanting.

When they had little pink fake phones singing “ay-ay-ay I’m your little butterfly”. (Butterfly by “Smile”). When they played the xylophone. Went out with their friends. Oh, where, where is all that? I start to miss it myself…”

And so, the days went by, and people found it both difficult and satisfying to live without smartphones. They discovered that life is undependable of sinking and spiralling deeper and deeper unto the net, that they have friends, that there is life.

Time went by, and people were more happy. Even blissful. They stopped chasing the dopamine high that arrives with scrolling mindlessly through their phone. Less people were depressed. But, there were also downsides for the phones elimination.

People have lost their jobs.

People couldn’t connect with people from another continent.

They felt more depressed, in a way.

They felt the burden of living a life without a way to connect meaningfully through the net.

Correct, they had it in real life.

Correct, they could fly abroad.

And yes, they felt satisfied without their phones.

But something important was missing.

Something lacked.

Humanity invented something,

Then it was forced to live without it,

And this black and white solution,

“No smartphones at all”,

Created a hole

Not big nor small,

And confusion

Amongst people who felt both the horrible downsides if technology,

And both the beautiful blessing of the internet,

At the same time,

And people were trying to think of a new plan,

To live in a different way,

Without smartphones,

But in a way that will bring the advantages of these old, now, smartphones. Don’t worry. Humanity will find a way. Don’t stress no more.