That’s supposed to be a small ‘i’ in the heading, but it won’t let me do it. So about two weeks ago my Blackberry was stolen and at first I was bleak, because:

A) A Bold 9700 isn’t cheap

B) I wouldn’t have things like Whatsapp and BBM

My replacement phone has taken a while to arrive, and as time has gone on I’ve realised how much I don’t need a phone on me. Now that people have to send me SMS’s, they think before sending them because they have to pay for them. And it’s made things so much simpler. I find that on BBM/Whatsapp, people just message me for no reason.

“Yo yo whatsup?”

When I get this I know people are bored and want to start a conversation.

“What you up to?”

“What you doing?”

I think in future I’ll just not reply to those sorts of messages, because it wastes my time. I’m one of those people who loves silence, so I don’t need to always be out doing something in groups. I don’t always need to talk, or sit on Facebook. I’m very happy to be sitting somewhere, staring at the ocean or the sky, in silence. I also like spending time by myself, because I find a lot of people these days are just concerned by how well they are doing for themselves, how business is growing and how much money they are making. All of which I don’t care about.

I’d rather be outdoors somewhere than listening to this shit. And it’s what a lot of peoples conversation is made up of these days, all the superficial stuff. Either that, or bitching about the problems in the world, instead of doing something about these problems.

Anyway, on my Blackberry I had three e-mail accounts coming in (SLXS e-mail and two work accounts), Twitter, Whatsapp, BBM and Facebook. I had turned the Facebook notifications off long ago because they used to drive me mad. And to be honest, BBM was driving me mad. Messages every few minutes with no actual point to them.

People sending me random stuff, that was just interrupting. You know how frustrating it is when you’re trying to work, and your concentration is being broken at least every 10 minutes by messages? It’s impossible, and it stresses me out.

It may also be my fault for actually checking messages that often, but I think this time round I’ll do things differently.

I’m not going to be available 24 hours a day. Maybe three times a day I will check my messages and reply to them. I want to be able to work more effectively next year, without interruptions.

I want to enjoy the silence of the old world, where we would get phone calls occasioanlly. A world where we didn’t share every bit of information. Where we made specific times to meet up and see each other.

I just find this whole thing of being connected 24/7 to be hugely stressful. Not in the typical sense of stress, but it does stress me out in a sense. Since I haven’t had my phone I’m so much more chilled. No one knows the number I’m using, and no one has missed me, and I haven’t missed anyone. I still see everyone. Life is still good. But I don’t have little messages beeping throughout the day, breaking my life into 10 minute spells where I have to type messages.

And the thing is, people almost expect us to be connected 24/7, replying to messages all the time. What they don’t realise is that some of us don’t want to be. But we are sort of forced to be connected, and you know what, why can I not make my own decisions over my life? Well, we actually can.

So I’m going to choose to be more disconnected. Because  we all know deep down, that in this infinitely more connected world, we’re all a little more disconnected. Our conversations are short, mostly 160 characters or less. They’re pointless most of the time. They’re used to fill the silences in our life, when we feel ‘bored’ But you need to remember that there is beauty in silence. I’m a huge fan of silent moments, staring at the mountain or the ocean, or just the sky. Or just sitting back in silence and enjoying it. That’s the real happiness in life, when you can be by yourself, disconnected from modern technology, and be content. Athletes will know this feeling, that feeling of pure pleasure when you’re out on the bike or running on that trail, by yourself, in silence, having the time of your life. That’s what it’s like to be really connected to the planet.

Not connected via social networks.

We make one click and think we’re going to help the starving kids in Africa. We’re disconnecting ourselves from the real problems. We’re just Facebook and Twitter and BBM profiles, and we say things without thinking. We say things in our Facebook statuses that we would never say in real life.

What are your thoughts on this, does BBM/Whatsapp on your phone stress you out too? Does the constant connection actually make you feel more disconnected?