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Two Months Without a Smartphone
Unpopular opinion: Phone detox didn’t do much for me at all
The first thing I should note is that I didn’t plan to go two months without a phone. I’m not the type of person who does influencer-style digital detoxes, which is important because later I’m going to share some opinions with you that run in sharp contrast to the yoga pants and kombucha crowd, so you should know ahead of time.
Anyhow, I wasn’t looking to be unburdened of my Galaxy A12 two days after arriving in Santiago, Chile, but it happened anyway, courtesy of a thief so smooth that he should have moonwalked out the door on his way out. Maybe he did moonwalk? I wouldn’t know; I didn’t see him at all until the manager sent me the security cam photo, which I have dutifully Ghiblified and posted below, with annotations.
The cell phone was charging next to my hip. I got absorbed in ChatGPT session and, in that narrow time frame, the thief sat next to me, confirmed I was distracted, and stole the phone. After seeing the photo I just whistled. “I’m not even mad,” I confided to the manager. “I’m just impressed!”
