30 Days of dumbPhones*

(Taken with my smartPhone. Meta.)

Like drinking PBR and wearing flannel shirts in the summer, hating your smartPhone has become the latest cool thing to do. Not one to miss out on a trend, I now despise my iPhone.

Seriously though, I've become increasingly dependent on my mobile computing device. A few weeks ago, I went on a road trip with Casey McK., Rob C. and Evan C. We showed up at the airport in Seattle with no plans, travel guides or maps. But we did have two iPhones and a car charger. Turns out that was enough.

This incident wasn't the first time I relied on technology to save the day. Have I really become this attached to an inanimate object? Could I live without it if I had to?

Enter social experiment number 2: 30 days of dumbPhones*

For the month of August, I'll be switching SIM cards out of my awesome but dominating smartPhone and into my humble but effective dumbPhone. The *asterisk* is necessary because I'm not going cold turkey (that'd be crazy, plus I use it for work). Instead, I'm weaning myself off; every weekend of this month, I'll be going smartPhoneless. Using the phone above, I'll make calls, text, check voicemail and nothing else (camera sold separately). To kick it off, this weekend I'll be hitting the road to Boston and then Long Island, with nothing but a circa 2005 Motorola flip phone and printed out Google maps directions (quaint, I know).

I've also figured out ways to text into AMDAL, so I'll be liveblogging my experiences periodically. So follow along and watch me sweat, twitch and vomit through all the withdrawal symptoms as I fall down the social status ladder back to a world where snake was the only game and, like O'Doyle, T9 ruled.

Am I excited? A little. Scared? Definitely.

So we'll see how my weekends sans-QWERTY goes. Wish me luck. But quick, I gtg. TTYL8R :)

Hat tip: Klingon for providing the dumbPhone - enjoy the shirt.