I am a slave.
[Image credit: MiYung Youn]
I didn't know I was, although I probably should have. I am a slave to my smartphone.
I am reluctantly the proud owner of an iPhone 6 plus. I know I should probably be more a fan of open source options. However I have been sucking off the Apple teat since the iPhone 4, and feel very comfortable using it, zero problems.
Until this:
Not exactly #photography worthy, eh?
Like many other smartphone zombies out there, I love documenting just about everything at any time by snapping candid photos. To my surprise, almost instantaneously my camera started taking really crappy pictures like the one above. This was a pretty cool moment where my son won a jackpot on a silly arcade game at a Dave and Busters in Indianapolis, IN. Moment ruined forever.
I did my normal internet digging to see if anyone else had troubles with their iPhone taking blurry pictures like this. Turns out, this is a pretty common problem with iPhone 6 plus phones exclusively.
I found out there is an entire replacement program that will take care of this problem for free. Sweet deal, right?
Wrong.
I handed my phone over after school to the local Apple store early evening yesterday. I got it back at after school today. What happened in between was a series of anxious and revealing moments about me and my addiction. My stupid smartphone addiction.
I watched in horror as someone was taking my phone, my baby, into their hands. Someone else holding your phone is like them holding an extension of your actual self.
They ran diagnostic reports and checked through my camera and photos for visual evidence of blurry photography. Imagine my horror when they scrolled through these pictures I had saved for a satire piece about the female personification of 
"Oh those," I said. "It was for...a...satire thing I did for a site a while back." This basically the look I received:
After verification of my camera problem, I was sent on my way with a guarantee my phone would be done by the next day.
When I left the store, I didn't really think anything.
Then, I instinctively reached for my car console to call my wife. No phone there. I never even thought to call my wife beforehand to coordinate anything involving our evening prior to handing over my phone. "Oh crap, I am so in the doghouse," was the only thing I could think.
I rushed home and tried to think about the best way to call my wife. Skype? I didn't think it would work. Google voice? My wife might think it was spam. We have no landline phone, so a billion points to me for saying at one point we would "never need one, like ever," the last time the conversation came up at home.
Facebook. Facebook freaking messenger.
That was the only thing that worked. I got on my desktop, and after some momentary distractions on Steemit because I'm only human, I reached my wife on Facebook. Everything worked out well, and we made our plans for the evening just fine.
Spending the rest of my evening without my phone and away from my computer felt just, oddly strange. For one, I didn't exactly realize how often I look at my phone. I like to pretend it is just to look at the time, but it always ends up being the time and something else.
I found I was paying attention to conversations more, picking up on smaller details I probably would have missed. I found out at open house, for instance, that my daughter is going to have a new inquiry based curriculum with an emphasis on multiple modalities of problem solving this year. If my phone was there on me at the time, my take away would have been that I have a daughter. Oh, and this is what I would have heard:
Panic set in when I got home. How would I wake up?
I have no working alarm clock in my house. My phone is my alarm clock. I had to get to school early. I am a notoriously hard sleeper. What if I show up late?
My wife generously offered to set my normal six alarms five minutes apart from each other on her phone. Because that is what loving spouses do. It's not easy being married to me.
I didn't really sleep well last night because of aforementioned fears. I was pretty groggy in the morning and was very concerned about all the people out there that may have been trying to get a hold of me. Should I put a message out there I am without my phone? How do I let people down gently I haven't responded to them within an acceptable time frame?
At school, I have no issues.
Being a teacher is an exercise in madness. I get one 30 minute unencumbered break time every day. Outside of that, my daily activities are like I am playing the The Flight of The Bumblebee on loop for eight hours. There is no time for anything else.
I would be lying though, if I said I wasn't thinking about the status of my phone almost all day. If for anything else, I also couldn't check my e-mail during the day because I set it up to exclusively require 2FA to login. The 2FA that is on my phone. The phone at the shop. The phone that is the extension of me. My baby.
After a few student help sessions and after school meetings, I finally got to pick up my phone.
I expected my phone to buzz with reckless abandon with tales of text messages missed and push notifications abound. Instead? I had one text message I missed yesterday from my wife asking me where I was.
Here were my social messages. Sure am glad I didn't send out an all points bulletin for my whereabouts:
My camera? Guess I'm glad I got that fixed too. I got a chance to send a sarcastic picture message to my wife while on the road home about the local traffic status. Glad that wasn't blurry or my point I'm sure would totally be lost.
Indiana University student move in day.
The point is, I'm lost.
I'm hopelessly lost without my smartphone. I suspect many of us are. I spent 24 hours of my life free from it, and even then I couldn't shake the feelings of withdrawal. It's one part lesson learned, and another part affirmation. Without this technology are we all lost?