I’m a millennial. I got my first phone at 17, when I left home for hostel life, a Nokia 6030, which allowed me to play Snake, make calls, and send texts. I used to text with just the thumb at lightning speed.
At 22, my boyfriend gifted me the sleek Lumia 800 with his first salary. But after 3 years, Microsoft couldn’t keep up with the app ecosystem, so I switched to Android with a Motorola.
The upgrades after that were more like my phone died.
A Redmi Note that lasted me 5 years before the screen shattered. A second-hand Motorola, which died when rain seeped into its cracked screen. And now, a OnePlus A5000 from 2017, donated by a friend. Its battery drains fast, but I love it. Also, I never ever bought a power bank in my life.
Somewhere along the way, I realised the uglier and more defective the phone with basic function intact, like calling, Spotify for gym, and UPI, the better it was for me.
A phone with defects becomes a functional tool while an upgrade sleek phone becomes the nosy relative. Cracks in the screen mean you stop caring if it slips and also don’t watch reels for hours. A dying battery means you use your phone consciously.
Over the years, in their own small ways, these flawed devices kept weakening my cravings for content consumption. They freed me from the subtle anxiety of always needing my phone at hand. I stopped caring if my phone slipped, ran out of battery, or lagged. I stopped caring if I forgot it at home.
“When you don’t care about your phone, you are in a ‘Selfish Functional’ relationship with your phone.
In a selfish-functional relationship, you only think about yourself, not about the notifications, not about capturing every moment, not about illusory urgent messages. That cuts down the noise and brings self-awareness, which brings clarity, and the power shifts from the device to the human.
All these years, while I was trying to digitally de-addict, my broken phones were quietly helping me. They stripped away the shine, the temptation, the obsession. They helped me remember that I am the master, not the device.
And in their brokenness, I found clarity.
So maybe, just maybe, next time you feel like getting a phone upgrade, ask yourself,
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