Resisting smartphones |

sadbuttrue I have many friends who grew really addicted to their “smart” devices. When we’d go out for a drink, the common ritual occurs – check in with FourSquare, then tweet if it’s a particularly nice place, check their email, and maybe take a photo and post it on Facebook – and that’s even before the drinks arrived. Checking email/tweets/status update routine would then extend during the conversation, in 5-10 minute intervals.

Interestingly, I never had a smart phone. For me the ultimate thing to look in any phone has been it’s battery life. That easily removed any smart phones from a list of desirable phones as far as I am concerned. Give me a 10+ day battery life and that gets me excited.

Not being “plugged into” the email throughout the day really allows me to enjoy the rest of my day, time that I am supposed not to be working.

Does the business suffer? I still did not have a situation when the fate of the business would depend on me having the access to email at that very moment. There have been few urgencies throughout the years that needed my immediate response but I usually had Internet near by. If there is no Internet near by then having an email app on the phone wouldn’t help either.

I still do spend a lot of time with email but I like to devote time to it in bigger chunks, allocating time to email in the morning, during the day and in the evening. That allows me to get more things done as I am focused on only handling email.

And I am still definitely addicted to Internet. Need to receive my regular daily dose every day. But at least I am lucky that it does not extend throughout the whole day.

Could you do without Email, Facebook, Twitter, FourSquare, News apps on your phone? If not, how is it improving your life? Shoot in the comments.