Diary Of Behaviour

Day 1 (Friday) :

Like everybody else in this digital age, I would use my phone every single day without fail, it has basically become part of my life.

In the morning, before I am awake, my phone would have already woken me up  put it to snooze. After which I would proceed to check my messages to see if there are any important messages that are important or require any immediate reply.

Throughout the day, as I am commuting on the train, I would play multiple mobile games with my earpiece plugged into both my ears to cut myself off from the mad rush hour. After games, I would then look into social media applications to catch myself up with the latest news and trends.

While I am at home, I tend to use more of my computer instead of my mobile phone as I could basically accomplish every task I can on phone, on my computer itself. I would say that I actually spend the most time on my mobile phone while I am not at home, commuting alone on public transport.

As addicted as I might sound, there are also times when I actually put away my phone after a period of heavy usage and I start to look around me in the train cabin. I would say, 4 out of 5 commuters actually have their heads bent down, swiping through endless feeds on social media, if not on mobile games or watching serial dramas.


Day 2 (Saturday):

It was not an easy day for me. I have lost all my rewards in most of my mobile games. It was the start of the weekend and I have to put away my phone entirely. It wasn’t easy for me, but it was certainly bearable for me as I have an outing which also means I can be easily distracted from using my phone.

After leaving house, I texted my friend to let him know that I am actually on the way to meet him already I kept my phone away and proceed to meet my friend. It felt uneasy for me not to reach my pocket to some regular swiping on my screen, but I got over it quite quickly.

And so I reached the destination where I am supposed to meet my friend. He was nowhere to be seen. So i panicked. Fear started to build up as I am worried that he might have notified me of sudden changes.

To distract myself from being worried and to resist the temptation to use my phone, I went to have a walk in the vicinity so that I could window-shop as well as to keep a lookout for him. Usually when the other party is late for the meeting, the first thing I would do would be to play games on my phone to kill off some time until we meet. Now that I am not on my phone, as I window-shopped, I found out that it was actually better to look at physical things as compared to the things I see on the digital screen, virtually.

Besides being more aware of real-world things, I also begin to feel and see that the takeover of technology is very serious. At least in Singapore. Even children in prams, are having a smartphone in their hands, and for some, tablets. Having said this, I find myself being more observant to my surroundings, such as happenings and people. Street performers, street displays, new architectural buildings can actually be way more interesting than anything else inside a smartphone.

After the outing, I couldn’t resist the temptation, and pulled out my phone from my pocket and loaded my games. However, I find that leaving out the phone in our daily lives could sound very difficult in today’s context, but I still feel that being offline digitally can sometimes, do us good too.