In this Modern Society

In this modern society, people are inseparable from their phones, but what happens when you don't have a phone? Does the world end? Will I miss out on things?

I had a Samsung Galaxy s3 mini, and 3 days before I was due to fly home to England, it broke.

I had trouble with it at the beginning of summer but I had factory reset it and bought a new battery so it was essentially a new phone and had been working super well(especially when you compare it to before). There were no problems.

Come Thursday afternoon I had been playing with the kids and my phone was just sat on the table. I tried to click the screen on to check the time, it wasn't working But I shrugged it off as it had been laggy before; I carried on playing and a bit later I checked again. It didn't work. I thought maybe the battery had died so I left it to sort later.

Later when I was free I was trying to turn it on snd it was completely unresponsive , even when I went online and researched what to do snd tried these safe modes etc it didn't work.

So I had three days left in Spain and my phone doesn't turn on. I was literally just thinking this is the most inconvenient timing and I was flying to China in exactly a week.

I hoped my dad could fix it at home.

It turns out that he couldn't fix it snd even after flashing it (redownloading Samsung software). So I had to buy a new phone; but...and this is a big but, it turned out to be such a good thing that I didn't have a phone (yes , inconvenient, but it was only temporary so why worry!) .

❝My phone broke and it was the best thing that happened to me❞

Why was not having a phone a good thing? How did I cope being abroad?

Good questions! Well, it was a really good thing because i wasn't constantly thinking about social media and there was zero worry/stress/pressure related to having a phone and it was great. I was totally carefree and truly fully immersed in the Basque culture.

I spent my time people watching snd reading people's body language. Actually talking to people, having a real life conversation again with real friends (and not just someone you accepted because they have 69 mutual friends with you).

I didnt my feel the need to have my phone at any point either. I could fully relax and unwind and it was lovely to reconnect with the world and people.

As much as I don't want to be on my phone and social media all the time, I can't help myself and to get rid of that for a few days is so refreshing.

And now that I am in China I have not had any internet (except the odd bar) and a lot of things are blocked in China (eg. Facebook, Google, Instagram, Snapchat) so even when I do have wifi I am only replying to a few WeChat or WhatsApp messages.

Again it's so refreshing to be out and about exploring and not being distracted by my phone or texting your friends because you're too lazy to have a real conversation.

Sometimes I think it's a bit sad how dependant people of my generation are on their phones and more importantly internet.

I'd highly recommend taking a break every so often, maybe once a month have a weekend off and it'll be so refreshing to reconnect and not be relying on the internet. You'll find new things to do, explore new places, you may even find a new hobby!