3 Things I Learned After Using a Blackberry for a Week.

Before the virus happened, I was fortunate enough to spend a week with my family at a cottage (my first time ever).

I thought it’d be the perfect time to experiment with my phone usage and see if I could survive without a smartphone.

For this experiment I used:

• A Blackberry Classic
• Had ZERO Contacts Imported
• No Calendar Syncing
• No Appstore (shut down in 2019)
• No Music/Podcast

Most of my freelance work comes from me posting on Instagram everyday and being active there, so I really struggled with the first 2 hours of converting to a Blackberry

I told myself, if I really had anything THAT important to tend to– it would still be there for me a week from now.

So without further ado, here is what I learned after using a Blackberry for a Week.

1. Being More Intentional

The Blackberry I was using is from 2014, internally by today’s standards the hardware is pretty outdated, this made my apps load VERY slowly.

Therefore I had to be careful with what I did open – I had limited computing power and if I had too many tabs open it would slow my phone performance even more, and I’d probably spontaneously combust from impatience.

After day 2 I got used to the slow loading times.

It forced me to think EXACTLY what I was going to use an app for before I opened it.

2. Social Media Isn’t Fun Anymore

Using social media LESS is pretty easy when you have a Blackberry. Mostly because the phone is too slow to handle anything cool, plus – when your screen is a 2.4" square, watching unboxing videos on YouTube loses it’s appeal pretty fast (Yes I watch unboxing videos for fun).

More importantly, It was not until I left for a week that I realized how poisonous social media was for of own self-esteem.

When I was on there it felt like a non-stop comparison engine, a never ending list of ways I could feel sh*tty, about not doing enough, not being more, not posting more, etc.

If you struggle with letting go of your habit too, it’s not your fault – Facebook and others purposefully design these to be in such a way that hypnotize you into a few more minutes each time you open it, the inch-by-inc technique.

So yes, I discovered that social media was at fault for the background anxiety I was experiencing, using a Blackberry helped me realize this.

3.The Race with No Finish Line

After being offline for a bit, I also learned something else – Life is a Single Player Game.

You will never progress by comparing your self to others, if you do that then you are just asking to feel like crap all the time.

The only score card that matters is internal.

Making sure you are 1% better than yesterday at the things, values, and objectives that are SET by you, not what is being rewarded online.

So much of the content on social media is just a trigger for your comparison engine – running in the back of your mind when you sleep and it whispers that you are never enough.

You scroll down a stream of posts from people making more progress in their careers, hobbies, lovelife, fitness or (INSERT INSECURITY HERE)and it makes you feel like crap.

Yet we check these apps every few minutes to measure our worth in likes and interactions.

For me I felt like I always had to catch up, like I never had enough time.

But that’s the illusion, it’s what the *Matrix* of our reality is.

Remember: just because the online world awards a certain behaviour, doesn’t mean it should be rewarding for you. Think for yourself! Get a Blackberry :)