In India, ludicrously cheap data is both a bane and a benediction. It helps in the penetration of the internet to the remote parts of the country’s hinterlands. But it has also created a new kind of zombie: a prisoner to the smartphone; doom scrolling the day away, immersed in the banalities of social networks and checking, from minute to minute, the number of ‘likes’ one’s post has garnered; priding oneself on alacrity by answering every unimportant WhatsApp message and email no sooner than it pings.
These people seem surgically attached to their smartphones. What they suffer from has a name. It is called nomophobia – the fear of going without one’s mobile. The dangers of this sort of addiction to the phone screen are well-documented in both children and adults.
Over the past three-odd months, I have conducted a social experiment on myself in this regard. On arriving in Vancouver, a little over three months ago, I took a Canada phone number with zero data. I could only make or receive calls and text messages from it. My regular India number I retained for phone calls through WhatsApp and for the internet and emails. So, it worked only in places that had Wi-Fi. In this case, the apartment in which we stayed. I deliberately did not switch to Wi-Fi in public places that offered it.
As a result, I was off the grid for large parts of the day. Whenever I was not at home, that is. No more scrolling through old WhatsApp messages. No more checking the weather from time to time for no earthly reason. No more rereading emails that perhaps should not have been read in the first place. No more vacuously staring at the screen while on a bus or a train, and, unlike the majority of my fellow passengers, no more flicking at the screen, jumping between websites. I always carried a book with me. It helped me rediscover the old joy of reading while travelling on public transport.
Once home, I checked the internet, took care of my emails, made phone calls and replied to messages through WhatsApp. But this was a controlled engagement. It was not of the kind that swallows you up. I had effectively turned my smartphone into a dumb phone. My phone, finally, was just a phone, capable of doing all the old-fashioned things a phone used to be able to do, and no more. It felt like an escape, a liberation. I couldn’t be happier.And yet. There were moments I intensely missed having data on my phone while I was out of the house. I missed it as Novak Djokovic and Carlos Alcaraz surged through their draws at Wimbledon. As Arsenal played Crystal Palace in the second game of the Premier League season. As the Ashes reached a tumultuous, tantalising climax at the Oval in London. And as Chandrayaan-3 landed on the south pole of the moon.I missed it in our San Francisco hotel room (paid-for data, which I refused to pay for) when not being able to instantaneously look up the details of a place we intended to visit, or find out the quickest way to get there. Those occasions made me realise how data and the internet have become meshed with the way we live now. At the same time, doing without it for large parts of the day was a delight. It made me feel unfettered, lighter, more conscious of and attentive to the world around me.
Will I be able to keep to this hybrid model once I return to Delhi? The rhythm of the day is different there. The compulsions and demands are not the same as in Vancouver. I don’t know yet. What I am certain of is that it has been great fun while it has lasted.