Would You Go One Year without a Smartphone for $100,000?
I am a millennial. I was born in the early 90s where I grew up on Nickelodeon and dial up internet. I graduated high school several years before Instagram and Twitter, back when Myspace was still a thing. At my best, I could text 74 words a minute using T9.
And I’m ready to do it all over again.
Could you go one year without a smartphone for $100,000? This the challenge being thrown down by the good people at Vitaminwater. In addition to providing you with a refreshing electrolyte-filled cure for your hangover, the company is offering a cool six figures to anyone willing to live with a “1996-era cellular telephone” for 2019. The participant will agree to not use or touch a smartphone for 365 consecutive days. The restriction is just for smartphones and tablets, so you won’t have to live totally in the 90s. Laptops and desktop computers are okay to use as are voice-activated devices like google home or amazon echo.
Vitaminwater knows the challenge is difficult so they want to know what you’d do with your time if you are chosen to go “scroll-free for a year” in this contest. Frankly, most of the entries are what you’d expect for people who will be facing a year without technology (or just general New Year’s resolutions we all make annually and then quit by March): read more, exercise more, spend more time with friends/family, cut social media time, etc. All of these are admirable. I respect the commitment to improving one’s self and I hope those not picked will continue to strive for those goals nonetheless.
But let me make my case to you Vitaminwater. Pick me. You say that one out of every two people can’t go without a smartphone for a year, so who better to challenge the notion than a late 20s millennial? I mean nobody thinks our generation can do anything right anyways. According to most, we’re technology dependent, socially inept, and our personalities are mostly defined by the image we project online. Hell, a year ago, I would have told you I could easily go a year without a smartphone, but things change. I upgraded to an iPhone XR at the end of 2018 and honestly the thought of my Instagram story going blank for a whole year sounds problematic. Who else will post portrait mode pics of animals, rooftop patios with a temperature sticky, or filtered pictures of a Polaroid picture from a wedding the night before? Imagine not being able to post my Spotify Wrapped come December. Or not being able to tweet the ridiculous things you see or hear on the Red Line at 6am. It’s almost too much to bear. But then again…
Imagine proving them wrong. For $100,000 I’m in. I’ll hand over the phone, take a lie detector test, and gladly take the challenge to go scroll-free. What will I do instead? Aside from writing about it for a year and providing some exposure for the contest and your brand, not much honestly. Maybe it’s naiveté or maybe it’s cockiness but I’ll pretty much keep doing the exact same thing. I have about 25 to 30 books I’ve been telling myself I need to read. They’ll either get read or they won’t, but having a phone for the last three years hasn’t had any effect so far. I work out on a consistent schedule already so I don’t think losing social media is going to lead to any #gains. Finally, I use a laptop for work so the only thing changing there is when I tell someone “I didn’t see your email until just now” I’ll finally be telling the truth. I’ll admittedly miss posting to Instagram and scrolling twitter. My biggest concerns are the same ones that killed me last time I went without a phone, namely uber/lyft, airline travel, and reading books or the news.
But imagine the content. “Dating with a flip phone in 2019” is Pulitzer worthy content. “My friends stopped inviting me to brunch because they can’t add me to the group chat” has potential to be the best sob story since Marley and Me. “I have to answer phone calls from numbers I don’t recognize” could be this year’s Get Out. And c’mon, “I had to talk on the phone for 40 minutes with my great-uncle Charlie for his birthday because I can’t post to Facebook” is heartwarming for all ages.
So I’m in. I’ll give up iMessage for T9. I’ll sacrifice Facetime for the ability to actually close my phone when I’m done with a conversation. Choose me for the scroll-free contest. I’d go #NoPhoneForAYear in 2019. Would you?
