Con-Texts. Unplugged for 24 Hours….7 Moments of Heaven.

My smart phone was not so smart after all last week. 

It died. Simply died. Since then, I’ve heard tales of many other people whose phones simply ceased to work. I had to have it “wiped,” which sounds like something out of a sci-fi film. I lost many of my contacts. I lost my List Master, which had all of my short- and long-term goals on it (business and personal). Many of my apps vanished too.

But you know what? It really wasn’t so awful. In fact, I liked it in many ways.

After a brief spasm of nomophobia, I started to breathe normally again and went into problem-solving mode.

I have a “top secret bat phone” and I gave that number to the five people who might really really need/want to reach me.

I told my clients that they needed to e-mail me or call me on my land line if they had an urgent need. I am not a neurosurgeon. We didn’t miss any deadlines or lose any business, as far as I know. The only loss was about five hours spent trying to troubleshoot and restoring my digital life when my phone was alive again.

I was tech-shamed by the AT&T guy and my geek friends. (They scolded me and shook their heads. “You mean you don’t back-up regularly?” they said. It was like my dentist telling me that I need to do a better job of flossing. I guess it’s one of those things I just have to make time for now and then.)

But here are seven magical things that happened during those 24 hours:

1. I stopped caring what people were doing on Facebook.
2. My LinkedIn requests waited for me.
3. No moment during that time was so cosmic that it needed to be chronicled on Instagram and re-Tweeted.
4. I used my office land line to make phone calls and actually heard people’s voices for a change.
5. During my walk to work, I noticed buildings I’d never seen before. When I took a cab (because I had no Uber or Via), I chatted with the cab driver.
6. I slowed down. My hands relaxed. I didn’t miss holding my phone or having a piece of plastic in my ear.
7. When my phone was re-booted, I realized that I didn’t need many of the apps I had downloaded. I just reloaded the ones that truly make my life easier when I’m out and about. Thankfully, the pictures of my daughters and granddaughter and close friends and all my membership numbers for frequent traveler apps were saved in the cloud. (Bless you, Google Photos and aWallet!) Most of my other “activities” can wait until I’m in the office or at home and in front of a laptop screen, I decided.

Last year, my younger daughter her smart phone in for a not-so-bright phone. At the time I couldn’t understand why.

But now I get it. Being a little bit disconnected is not really so bad sometimes.

Need a digital de-tox?

• Cell phone radiation may cause cancer in rats, according to this new study.
• Go to Camp Grounded this summer!
• Unplug before going to bed. Here’s why it’s good for you.
• Constant texting can be bad for a relationship. Read more here.
• Huffington Post has two whole pages of article about cell phone addiction. Clearly, we have a problem.