And so today’s moment of happiness despite the news.
I took off my smart watch yesterday. Laid it down to the side of my desk, walked away, and thus far, over 24 hours later, I haven’t put it back on.
I feel like I’ve set down a heavy backpack.
It’s not that I don’t like technology. Most of what I do is dependent on technology. Email, Zoom, Google, you name it, I’m on it. I’m horrified at the idea of AI being used in writing, and I draw the line there. One of my books, The Home For Wayward Clocks, was included in the thousands stolen to train ChatGPT. I’m seeing people who now use the hashtag #AIAuthor. They aren’t authors. They’re AI users. Authors create their own work. Nothing artificial.
But then there was this watch.
Back in October, I went to my cell phone company to do something I was dreading. It was time to disconnect Michael’s phone and phone number. I’d used the phone for all I needed to after his death, and now, it was time to let it go. All a part of letting Michael go, I guess. There are many ways we have to deal with death now that wasn’t a part of our past. Social media, email addresses, bills paid online…the list goes on and on. But I was done. It was time for the phone to go.
The person at the cell phone store was very understanding. We took care of Michael’s line, laid it to rest. I also wanted to upgrade my phone, but “upgrade” was loosely used. I wanted a new phone that wasn’t as worn as mine, but that did exactly the same things in exactly the same ways. My learning curve, with everything I had to do since Michael’s accident and then his death, was so steep, I just couldn’t take anything more in. The person took me right to a phone and said, “This is it. This is what you want.” Oh, lovely. Easy. And he was right. I had very little learning to do with this phone.
As he was setting the phone up, transferring the data and such, I wandered around. The young man called out that smart watches were free with a phone upgrade. “Even mine?” I asked. He nodded.
I hadn’t thought of these watches much. One of my sons has one and uses it frequently. The watch I looked at had a sleep monitor on it. Health monitors. It would let me see my email and my texts and my messages from social media. It pretty much did everything but set up my coffee pot for the morning. So I decided to give it a try.
I hated the watchband, an ugly thing, and ordered a new one as soon as I got home. And then I set about getting acquainted.
It wasn’t long before the watch began to dominate my life.
It was the last thing I looked at before closing my eyes at night. The first thing I looked at in the morning. Instead of stopping to consider how I felt about my night’s sleep, if I was feeling rested, if I thought I’d slept well, I looked at my watch to tell me how I did, and then I felt accordingly. The watch kept telling me I was under stress when I was sitting quietly, reading or watching television.
And I kept checking it, checking it, checking it. I was suddenly never unplugged. The only time I didn’t have the watch on was when I was in the shower.
I began to notice that I showered with a sense of relief, not relaxation. The first thing I did when I got out of the shower: put the watch back on and check it.
The watch even kept telling me to get up and get moving. I’d be in the middle of talking with a client, or in the middle of writing, and it would shout, “Move! Move! You must move!”
I am not the sort that likes to be told what to do. I’ll move when I damn well please, thank you.
I watched a video the other day about cell phone addiction. The therapist said that if you can’t walk from one room to another without taking your phone with you, that’s a sign you might be too attached to your phone. I didn’t take my phone with me from room to room.
But my watch? It was with me wherever I went, except for the shower.
And so I took it off, as an experiment. Would I miss it?
Not at all. In fact, I think I’ve been breathing more deeply since I took it off. When I wake up in the morning after a good night’s sleep, I feel rested. I acknowledge when I’m under stress, and I know when I’m not.
I replaced the watch with a bracelet I picked up at the Milwaukee County Zoo. It tracks a penguin named Braveheart. She has a nest with two chicks in it. When I have a moment, when I’m sitting back and relaxing, not under any stress at all, taking a break the way I like to take breaks, and when I’m rested because I know I had a good night’s sleep, I look to my phone and I track my little penguin. I’d much rather track her than feel like I’m being tracked all the time by something outside of myself.
No more watch. Bring on the Braveheart.
And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.
