Disconnect to reconnect

Punkt digital detox challenge

Punkt. is a Swiss company that have developed a mobile phone that only makes calls and sends messages. It does a few other things too, but it has no apps, no touchscreen, no internet and no camera. In an era of smartphones, why on earth would people spend time, energy and money developing a “dumb” phone?

Last century, a major shoe manufacturer send two sales reps to Africa to try and sell shoes. The first sent back a telegram saying “it’s no good, nobody here wears shoes, so we have no business here“. The second sent a telegram saying “it’s amazing! Nobody wears shoes, we’ve got loads of business!“. It’s all a matter of perspective.

If the majority of today’s society opt for smartphones, there’s guaranteed to be a healthy proportion of the population that want to buck the trend without necessarily disconnecting themselves altogether. I find myself near to the border of this group’s territory.

The Punkt. Digital Detox project challenges people to ditch their smartphones for a time-period of their choice, and to try their MP 01 model instead. I took up the challenge!

The MP 01 was delivered by courier a couple of days before I was due to start the challenge. The brown parcel sat on my desk whilst I delayed the inevitable “switch off”. The night before I was due to start, I opened up the box and was pleasantly surprised to find a very impressive, well-designed and surprisingly light product that bore all the hallmarks of being both designed AND assembled in California’s Silicon Valley. Except it was Swiss, so a nation’s reputation was at stake!

I made sure that the Sim card worked and was immediately taken back in time to 1996, as I tried to send my wife (in the next room) a text message. After about 10 minutes I heard a “ping”. ‘It works” I thought and I turned my iphone off for a week.

The next morning instead of waking up to my usual (iphone) alarm, the MP 01 chirped like a cuckoo that made me jump out of bed! And so began my off-line week.

My work as a graphic designer requires me to be constantly connected. It’s a two-way thing: I like to be in touch with what’s going on, and clients want (and expect) immediate answers to their requests.

We live in a yurt on a remote run-down farm that we’re restoring on the wild Basque Country coast. We have no internet, phone line, TV, and until recently, no hot water! Our smartphones are pretty much our only connection with the outside world so choosing to turn that off too was quite challenging. Each evening, I would “log-on” through my wife’s phone to send a bunch of previously drafted emails and designs.

Over the course of the week I experienced some very frustrating and very interesting times. The most memorable was that I noticed that I slept a lot more soundly. Knowing that I couldn’t just reconnect with all that’s happening in the outside world at 3am, was surprisingly positive. “It can wait until morning” I thought.

At the start of the week, I visited the Basque national radio station to speak to them about the Punkt challenge. We wanted to take a photo of the visit to prove that I had been there, but of course, I didn’t have my phone. The presenter took a photo and immediately uploaded it to Instagram, Twitter and Facebook with various promotional hashtags. She also sent it to me by Whatsapp, but I had no way of checking it until the evening!

The next day I arranged to meet some friends in Donostia. They shared their location with me by whatsapp but to no avail. I tried to message them but got frustrated at the antiquated method of writing messages so just phoned them instead and ended up having a great conversation that otherwise we wouldn’t have had.

On Thursday, I was asked to go and foot-trim some sheep for a neighbour. He also sent me his location via whatsapp but I ended up arranging to meet him in a bar. While I was drinking my coffee, I looked around and most people were on their phones, except for one elderly gentleman that was reading the newspaper. I started talking to him and we ended up connecting on many levels.

The challenge wasn’t without its difficulties (I guess that’s why it’s called a “challenge”). It’s only when you ditch your smartphone that you really realise how much we rely on it for so many things. For taking pictures, for sharing images, accessing documents, email, whatsapp, social media, the news, the weather…

And it’s only then that you begin to look to alternative sources. I found myself reading the newspaper more to find out what the weather forecast will be. We have livestock on our farm and it’s important for me to know what tomorrow will bring. Ditching the smartphone forces us to communicate verbally and often face-to-face. It so much more rewarding, but it also makes me sad to think that this in itself is being lost.

Perhaps most of all, I missed the camera, so instead, I dusted off my Canon SLR, carted it around with me for a week in a backpack and rediscovered the joy of pushing my creativity to try and document what I saw and felt at given moments.

The MP 01 is a very sleek and modern piece of technology. Has it pressed “pause” on technological innovation? No. It is both a step back and a step forward. I believe that everything is a revolution. What goes around comes around. There’s definitely a place for the MP 01 in my life, but it has to share that space with a smartphone. Some things have been designed to make life easier (the axe, matchsticks, lightbulbs, dishwashers and smartphones!) – others make life more enjoyable, such as oak-aged wine and the very sophisticated Punkt. MP 01.

Will I ditch the iphone? No. I need it – not like oxygen, but like a car. It makes my life a lot easier.
Will I continue to use the MP 01? Yes* – this challenge has helped me to take back a level of control. Plus, it’s a beautiful phone.

*Self-discipline dependent!

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#punktchallenge
#MP01challenge
#digitaldetox
#technology_tamed
#punktdesign

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For more information, please visit: www.punkt.ch