No Phone for a Week! The Grand Experiment

Here it is! The ultimate experiment! Probably the hardest thing for any of us to even leave at home for a day during work. How triggered are most of us from just hearing this!

Let’s see what comes out of all the free time I now have while exploring Cusco, Machu Picchu, Lake Titicaca (grow up!), and Copacabana in the next week.

While traveling, a smartphone serves 3 purposes in my mind:

1. Communication Apps – WhatsApp, iMessage, Fbook Message, Tinder, Email
2. Traveling – Google Maps, Never Apple (duh!), Hostel reservations, trip itineraries
3. Camera – Photos.. obvi
4. Addictions – Every other app.. Providing a false sense of security and companionship when we are alone in public. (Note: this serves no purpose, it’s just ingrained in our habits to check our apps)

That last one cracks me up – Humans are insecure about being alone in ANY public place with strangers we’ll likely see again, so we cling to our handheld devices for insta gratification instead of literally stopping and smelling the roses.

(Note: Instead of public WiFi in parques we should have network blockers so people actually accomplish what they set out to get when they went to the park – tranquillity, mindfulness, sense of ease)

The premise:

While I won’t turn on my phone for one week, that doesn’t mean I will be completely void of tech. My mother would personally fly down to Cusco, spank me, and charge my phone to contact her if I tried that.

I will be continuing to work on my laptop during the week – completing Spanish lessons and building out an affiliate linking website (improvements to this site to come hopefully next week!)

I have a GoPro to take photos & vids of the sites this week. And I have my Kindle to read.

I’m sure there will be many interesting anecdotes that come of this, a few already come to mind-

• Breaking Bread – when the 1st person checks their phone at dinner I love watching the domino effect where within 2 minutes every person is on their phone
• Bars – Similar to cigarette breaks, we need phone breaks to check our ego’s and FOMO if someone else is having a better night than us
• Before bed – What does our daily wind down ritual look like if it doesn’t consist on catching up on the social media we haven’t checked since 8pm!! Do we revert back to praying? Do we even remember how? Read a book? Hmmm…

This will be a fun a week. I can’t wait to share the results here to only myself!!!