BY: ASHWIN
Dear Phone,
We’ve been together for years now. Our bond is longer than most friendships, healthier than some relationships and it is much more committed than my gym membership. You’ve always silently watched me laugh, weep, panic, delay the most urgent tasks, telling myself that opening Instagram was part of studying. Most of the time you were the only one who comforted me as well and always contributed of course. You deserve an award for acting and being so innocent. Every notification you give is dressed up as something essential, only to turn out to be someone’s meal or ASMR, a meme I’ll forget in thirty seconds, or a reel that opens with, “You’re not going to believe this…” I never do but still watch it full out of curiosity. You feed my brain with distractions.
I used to blame you for taking up so much of my time, but the truth is you never asked. You never said, “Forget your book,” Or “Scroll till your eyes bleed.” You were right there, bright and handy and constantly amusing. I did the rest of it. I gave away hours, one last scroll for the day leading to 3-4 hours of doomscrolling and then had the nerve to complain that life was too short. With you in my pocket, boredom became a crime. In a queue? Scroll. To eat? Scroll. Walking? Scroll. Down for 5 seconds? Scroll. Have a minute for myself to think? Absolutely not. Here’s a video of a dancing cat, instead.
You are my escape from everything- Stress, awkwardness, doubt, responsibility and even happiness. Funny how I was yearning for calm inside the very thing that kept interrupting it. I feed myself with the content way out of my league and get sad about it like a despaired person. And to add on to this pain, you’ve always convinced me that watching strangers organize their fridge at 2 a.m. is somehow more urgent than replying to texts, finishing assignments, or having a personality outside an algorithm.
So, here’s the deal. I’m not throwing you away. That would be dramatic, and honestly, I still need Google Maps and my banking app. But we’re going to redefine this relationship. Terms and conditions are being reviewed and reset. You’re a tool, not my landlord. You don’t get to occupy every quiet moment just because silence makes me uncomfortable.
No hard feelings.
Just fewer notifications, fewer excuses, and hopefully fewer conversations that begin with,
“Wait… why did I open my phone?”
Sincerely,
The person who finally realized the battery draining wasn’t yours.
