Going Without

I decided to go a week without mobile games. My phone would be used solely for communication and the internet – yes, I am aware that that still constitutes a huge timesuck, and no I don’t care. It’s my thing I can do what I want.

DAY ONE – 2/15/15

Day one was pretty easy. We were driving pretty much all day (traveling back from WI visiting family). I wrapped up my one loose end – leaving my Clash of Clans clan (Purdue Alumni – Boiler Up!) so my lack of participation wouldn’t harm our war performance – and began my dry week. Not surprisingly, there was not a lot of temptation to use my phone for games during the 8 hours of traveling (Left WI at 11 am Lafayette time, arrived home at 7 pm). We finished up the night with some board games with friends – another welcome distraction from my lack of distraction.

DAY TWO – 2/16/15

Today was a little harder. I did not turn off my app notifications, so my phone was going off every hour or so with a game asking me to come play. Here is a list of the games currently installed on my phone:

• Clash of Clans
• Trivia Crack
• Crossy Road (kind of an updated Frogger)
• Androminion (Dominion for Android)
• Spaceteam (needs to be played in a group anyway)
• Bike Race
• Chess Time
• Flappy Bird (the one and only)

I don’t play all of them every day – but I do spend an awful lot of time playing games and not paying attention to what is happening around me. Clash of Clans is especially time consuming. Trivia Crack, Space Team, Bike Race, and Chess Time are at least games played with people I know in real life.

Many of these games are also games I play on my tablet – which is also off limits for the week. So today, I kept myself busy with a haircut, brocery shopping (grocery shopping with your bros) with my son, and a trip to the mall.

DAY THREE – 2/17/15

Had to add the Stumbleupon app to the list of things I’m not allowed to use for the week. If you're not sure what it is, and you like your free time, don't look it up.

DAY FOUR – 2/18/15

Wednesday wasn't too bad. I had after school responsibilities, and then after dinner and some kid time, I went to improv practice - so I didn't have too much down time. Still, I am being bombarded with the game notifications I didn't think to turn off when I started this. Clash of Clans in particular is a bad one. Other games may notify me when it's my turn, or when a game has expired because of my absence - but CoC just keeps saying "Come back! We miss you!" I think we need to see other people, Clash.

 

DAY FIVE - 2/19/15

I had to stay after school again today to coach my math team, so that kept me busy for a little bit. When I got home, I made pork chops with asparagus and cornbread for dinner. It was pretty tasty. I am noticing that, while I am dealing with not playing the games fine (no withdrawals or anything), I’m still using my phone just as much. Facebook, Twitter, email, etc. are all keeping my attention just as much.

 

DAY SIX - 2/20/15

Friday. Friday! I had an improv show at 8 pm (call time at 6), so I didn’t have very much time at home. Spent most of it hanging out with my kid, making dinner, then getting ready to go.

 

DAY SEVEN – 2/21/15

I kept busy on the last day. We took the kid to a swimming lesson in the morning, then I played racquetball with friends around eleven. We cleaned the house a bit, then had friends over for games (more like an interminable round of Monopoly) later in the evening. Again, there was plenty of phone use. Just had to ignore the game notifications.

DAY EIGHT – SUNDAY 2/22/15 – AND FINAL REFLECTIONS

At last, the day came when I could once again… forget about the whole thing and not realize I could play games again until Sunday afternoon. Ah well. I guess it didn’t have that much of an impact.

I learned that I am probably going to use my phone for entertainment whether I can play games or not – this may or may not be a bad thing. I see a lot of people go on technology-free binges, staying off all electronics for an appreciable amount of time to glorious effect. This week was not one of those. But there have been a few repercussions:

• I am currently locked out of my clan in Clash of Clans. They are set to “closed” status and I have no way of contacting them. So I have no choice but to check in and ping myself against their doors every so often in hopes of getting in.
• I have lost/forfeited about ten games in trivia crack due to inactivity, making me the laughingstock of my small Facebook friend circle. What a dunce.
• Friends are passing me up in Crossy Road scores and number of unlocked characters. Again, laughingstock.

Despite the obvious negative outcomes of this experiment, I am actually none the worse for wear. I am noticing a slight freedom, however. I used to check my social games (the three above most often) several times a day – this was spurred on by the almost constant barrage of notifications I would receive from those games, reminding me to play. I could go on about the ramifications this has for society as a whole, but the thought of doing that makes me kind of tired. All I will say is that it’s kind of nice to force the realization that none of those things actually matter. I don’t need to worry about checking my Trivia games before 48 hours pass or I lose the game – because it’s just a game, and I can start a new one. None of it is real.

Thanks for reading! Post over. Now to play some Clash.