Recently a co-worker announced she was leaving the company. Not just any co-worker, mind you, one who toiled long before most of the people in the office had started. The kind of employee who knew everything. Where everything is, what the rules are, who to contact, and so on. The type who related stories about when the company actually started, “employee number 12”, that sort of thing.
She emerged from her cubicle, hidden deep into the dark recesses of the office, from where only the bravest ventured. She had been cleaning out her desk. Finding things of value that had long since been squirreled away. Things long forgotten. She approached my desk, a wry smile on her face. “Here” she said, holding out a vaguely familiar box that looked like something from a distant dream, that spoke of earlier times, when there were possibilities, not just probabilities that had already played out.
Inside the box was a Nokia 6085. There was a manufacturing date on the box that read 2007. This was a pre-smart phone phone. This is what the masses were using just prior to the release of the iconic iPhone 3. It was state of the art in 2007. In 2019 holding this phone felt strange, laughable, improbable.
It had hardly been used, all of the packaging intact, plastic still covering the cables and connectors. It felt strange to hold it, to open it, to boot it up. A tiny colour screen showed games, an address book, a messaging app. Upon looking around one thing became apparent. No browser.
No browser.
The contrast between this phone and the phone the average person carries around today is stunning. There is no question about the utility of today’s modern smartphone. The pioneers of the cell phone industry were creating something that no one can deny would alter the very fabric of society. Cell phones emerged as clunky, giant suitcase boxes in the ’80s, with a standard phone handset and usually the curly phone cord attached. That quickly evolved to become smaller, more convenient, more useful. But the introduction of the smartphone catapulted the venerable cell phone into the stratosphere.
The smartphone operating system gave developers basically the same platform, more or less, on which to develop applications, as they have with a computer. The same applications that would run on your computer. Nowadays you carry a computer in your pocket. And there are literally billions of dollars spent on the software that runs on that computer.
For me I happily bought in to the smart phone concept, “this is great!” I told myself. Forking over hundreds of dollars every couple of years to get the latest hottest new phone. But slowly and surely a dark, sinister feeling came to inhabit my mind. The first clue was the ubiquity of the smart phone, easily witnessed during my daily commute on the train. I stopped counting the number of people glued to their screens versus the people who weren’t. Many people on the morning train nodding off to sleep, ever clutching their phones in front of them.
Next I realized I was checking my mail, and text messages way too many times during the day. Place my phone down on my desk, not too far out of reach so I could see that delicious message notification blinking light. “What’s that a new test message, pour moi?”. Several years ago I realized I was much more productive, focussed, and, well happier if I simply turned message notifications off. I realized that I did not want to allow my phone to interrupt me for, well, anything.
Sitting there in the office holding this dinosaur of a cell phone, yet in perfect condition, hardly used gave me an idea. Why not use this cell phone. Put my smartphone away. See how that can change my life. See what value the smartphone brings to my life – by taking it away.
And so my co-workers were quick to pipe up, “Say what! You won’t last a week!”. Well it wasn’t long before the Flip Phone Challenge was born. I must use the Nokia 6085 for 30 days. My phone will be locked by a duly appointed adjudicator, the pin only known by him. My smart phone will be inaccessible to me and I must sally forth into the world with, gasp, 2007 tech.
Today is day one. Heaven help me.
Really!