MY GUMS ARE BLEEDING!!!! (only when i brush or floss too hard) I want to buy a (different) cell phone. (unrelated to the bleeding gum issue) I am endlessly plagued by the over-availability of the self and the hyper-accessibility of any and all information. I miss the days when cell phones were a fun new gadget, a customizable way to carry a line of contact with you with as much or as little personalization as you desire. I used to dream of decking out my cellphone in heavy clay and plastic charms that rattled every time I typed and fun ringtones I could prank my friends with.
We are currently in the smartphone era, where hypnotic glass slabs of varying sizes power the global economy and, in the US especially, are at the forefront of culture and passive class wars (“eww, green text bubble? KILL YOURSELF, POOR!”). And despite the wondrous capabilities of these devices, their place as a sort of miniature supercomputer in our pockets to never be let out of our sight for too long has become oppressive, and becomes more of a nuisance with every passing day.
Am I guilty of willingly placing my head in the sharp, gaping maw of Smart Devices? Sure, like everyone else my age. See, I was born right as cellphones went from industrial sized bricks to smaller bricks with sickly green screens and firm buttons that could be pushed. You could throw these phones at a wall and still call your friends without major incident. Their initial main appeal for me, an elementary-aged child of the mid 2000s, was the plethora of games contained within this fairly simple device, an infinity of entertainment in the form of 1px lines circling the small screen in office waiting rooms. This was a helpful tool for acquiescing my hyperactive child self in the dull moments of errands I’d accompany my parents on.
As cellphones got more advanced, so did their games. Now, in addition to laying full color cellphone games on slightly more sleek number pads and LCD screens, I could snap a picture of whatever caught my eye at a moment’s notice. Granted, this was often a bug or a close up of my skin, perhaps even a snap of the back of my dad’s bald head. That, and the ability to add music to the phone were simply the most delightful things in the world to me. I remember often drawing pictures of how I pictured myself as an adult, face full of piercings and hair full of dye with a charm and sticker-laden cellphone and a rock and roll ringtone, I fancied myself as the coolest person alive in my loneliness and complex.
Middle school and teen years arrived coinciding with my arrival in the US, and suddenly I was thrust into the smartphone era. When I lived in Chile, I remember smartphones as a novelty of sorts, with my dad introducing me to his iPhone in the months before our move to the States. While cellphones were naturally interesting to me, they were previously never a central topic of most conversations or any sort of socio-cultural implications. When I started public schools, I was shocked at how many of my new friends and acquaintances had their very own smartphone, chock full of apps and social sites my parents (wisely) still kept me away from at the time. I was nonetheless ELATED when I received my first cellphone, an LG slider phone I could import images and MP3 files onto (granted, with some challenging obstacles when it came to actually listening to them). Before long, I figured out how to read fanfiction on this phone’s crappy internet browser (to my parents’ expense, as was often the case).
And when this phone finally crapped out after about a year or two of good, honest service, I was upgraded to the ever-growing smartphone class and was bestowed with my first iPhone 4s in about 2013. This glorious device was armed with a pink and blue gradient phone case and immediately became immensely special to me, with a newfound freedom to browse Tumblr, watch movies, call my friends, and more wonderful (and terrible) milestones of this era of the internet. Oh, how FUN! It is now 2024 and I have reached the iPhone 14 Plus I yearn for the simplicity of that first mobile phone I had, its clickable keys and arrow navigation. This device can do entirely too much, and I’m weary of it.
I have recently given myself permission to download an app that will allow me to fully block my social media apps for a certain amount of time with limited usage, and while it has proven helpful in taming the dopamine-sick beast in my head with gnashing teeth that craves rage bait and iJunk, I still find myself at a loss of what else I could do.
I have contemplated other cellphones, browsed a variety of devices that allow me some of the functionality I’ve come to adore (music, apps, etc) but without all these bells and whistles I can’t even name off the top of my head. The Japanese keitai denwa flip phone type is at the top of my list, the only drawback being finding one that will work in my region and not turn into a premium paperweight upon arrival. They make all sorts of cool flip phones in Japan, many with touch screen capabilities. Sleek, too. Many people are joining this movement to import Japanese cellphones to their home countries and ditch their smartphone…I haven’t looked at many testimonials yet because I am afraid of shattering this dream while it still has air beneath its wings. I don’t want my heart broken before I’ve exhausted the possibility completely and moved onto others.
I’m not sure what would become of my current cellphone, though. I worry I’d instantly regret this move, craving to be in the same circuit as the rest of the world but feeling untethered once I release my grip on this beast of a glass slab. Opal, the app that I’ve been using to forcefully block all my social media during the week, likes to drop fun facts about celebrities with minimal/no smartphone usage (Michael Cera being the guy that keeps coming up in these). I almost envy their life, until I consider this choice was one born out of a desire for control by releasing yourself from the constantly chattering panopticon of your smartphone rather than being consumed by it. Celebrities lately are mostly marketers first and celebrities second, their entire persona reliant on a carefully curated social media presence rather than interviews and general crashouts (BRING BACK CRASHOUT CELEBS!!! LET THEM EXPLODE BEFORE OUR VERY EYES!!!! INSTEAD OF BEHIND GAUZE AND LINENS!!!! REVEAL THEIR MARROW!!!!!!-- never mind. We’ve seen this already). Where was I going with this…Oh, yeah. Cellphones.
I don’t think I really like cell phones that much, really. I just like the convenience they provide. I wish we lived in a perfect world where we didn’t have to suffer through Having A Cellphone Just To Exist. I wish luxuries and similar concepts still existed. I wish we didn’t live in such a tech-dependent world. I wish we still relied on nuts and berries and bludgeoned guys we didn’t like without major implications. Granted, we still do, but for dumber things. But for now I have to reckon with the fact that I live in the era of electronic cigarettes, invisible credit cards, artificial companions, and ephemeral cyber lives that stick to everything like a troublesome resin.
Sad!