Giving up your smart phone

[Vishenka69]

I don't think I can go back to regular phone again. Way too addicted to my crackberry. DH has an iPhone but I'm not a huge fan, for some reason it doesn't like my fingers and I have the hardest time hitting the right buttons.

[houseelf]

I'll admit it, internet usage is my personal addiction. I am afraid to even go there because I feel crankier when I'm out of balance. Also, I'm not sure I want to have a $400 device that I am responsible for. Still, we're planning on upgrading come late September. It's like having an alcoholic tend the bar.

[scarlett09]

Just came back from 3 days at the beach, and I took my phone with me to the beach every.single.day. I didn't have it out all the time, but I may have checked Facebook once each day. Otherwise, I had it with me only to talk to DH when he got up in the afternoon. It did come in handy to check the ocean water temp, as it got really cold all of a sudden. I did manage to leave it behind when we went out one night, it was great.

I'm not sure that I am that reliant on it, I really only use it for FB, checking Gmail/Google calendar, checking the weather and my bank balance. Oh and playing Sudoku. But I don't think I could really go without it for an extended period of time. We will see how our next vacay goes in a few weeks where I won't be able to use it because we won't be anywhere near 3G.

Kris, I applaud you for doing this! I look forward to hearing your report about how the month went, what changes you would make and how you felt about the whole thing.

I do think we, as a society, are far too connected, especially at times we don't need to be. At my parents' beach house this week, my sister (15) had her laptop and cell phone, my brother (13) had his new Droid, and my father had his work laptop and crackberry. They were used at least twice a day, in the morning before we went to the beach and in the evening when we really could have been trying to better connect with one another. While I understand that the nature of my father's work requires him to check in once a day, my siblings should have been forced to keep their electronic items at home for the week. I like the idea of the "internet sabbath" that spottydog suggested. We might have to try that here.

Neither my husband nor I have a smart phone. We have really cheep, flip phones. I probably only look at the thing once or sometimes twice a day. I wouldn't really know what to do with one that was fancy.

[samssugarmomma]

We have "dumb" phones - as we lovingly refer to them. 8 ) We can text and they have the capability to use FB and the internet but we don't have a data plan. I'm not sure that we'll ever want to spend the money on that stuff.

I agree with the others that we are becoming too hooked up. The only thing that my four year old nephew talks about is video games that he plays either on his DS or my sisters phone or Kindle-thingy. Half the time I have no idea what the heck he is talking about! How the heck is Link and why are you calling me princess Zelda?

Good luck Kris, I hope you enjoy a calmer month!

[Cinderella]

As a parent if you have a smart phone you might want to watch this. Some of you may already know about it. Actually it's not just limited to smart phones. Many phones have this.

[diggitydot]

You can turn off geolocation in your iPhone camera. It's super easy.

Settings > Location Services > Camera

[MDPhDWife]

Thanks for posting this Cinderella! I had no idea and after checking my settings, my photo location was on! Yikes, I got it changed it now.

[SoonerTexan]

Whew! Mine was off. Scary. I shudder to think about the many pics DH has posted via the eBay app.