Freedom from the tyranny of tech

I have taken off my smartwatch. There, I said it. I took off my Apple Watch Series 9 with the Natural Milanese Loop. I let the battery run down and I put it away in a cupboard.

I have to confess I was a little nervous in doing so, as if I was doing something wrong; as if, once you’ve taken the thing off, you’re on your own now. A little more naked, a little more alone, a little less cared for, a little less cosseted. A little colder, a little afraid, standing there in the harsh light of day, without your assistant, guide, coach and motivator. No longer nudged and tapped by all the constant monitoring, all the exercise and movement rings and their daily prompts, and all those notifications, notifications, notifications.

Gone.

That is one of the main reasons why I wanted to take it off. I’d been wearing the watch for over two years, and I sensed I had become dependent on it; a little too connected to it. It had wormed its way a little too far into my life, and I wanted to push back, to reject.

After all, I have a very contrarian streak to me, and once I sense someone, something trying to push me in one direction, I want, need, must go in the other. Partly just to try it out, to see how it feels to go the other way. I have the same reaction when I see a crowd moving in unison, or everyone adopting a fashion, or even sense that someone wants me to respond in a particular way: I want immediately to do the opposite.

It sounds a little facile and it is, but I can’t help who I am, much as I have wished many times that I could be different. (On the flip side, this contrarian need to immediately pivot way from expectations has saved me on several occasions from responding positively when an unfortunate romantic encounter has presented itself; although the little niggling, tugging voice of the demon standing by my shoulder has wondered what might have been.)

Of course it’s partly about vanity. I don’t want to be part of the herd, a sheep. I want to stand out, to be seen, to be noticed. And you cannot do that if you dress in the same way, speak in the same way, converse in the same manner, and present yourself in the same fashion as everyone else.

I grew a beard while everyone was clean shaven in the 1990s (and was told on more than one occasion by offended women in rowdy bars that my facial growth was dirty and should be taken off), then cut it back to stubble in the 2000s once they became boringly ubiquitous. Now I am clean shaven and will likely never grow a beard again (and this, my dear friends, is why I would never, ever get a tattoo.)

But there is (thankfully) more to it than that. I have always been a firm believer in the notion that too much is done in life simply because ‘that’s what we do’, or ’that’s how it’s done’. Too little is examined; too little assessed and its merit determined. People crowd together to do certain things in certain ways because other people are doing it, so ‘it must be right.’ This is not only the enemy of good sense, it can lead us into ludicrous situations, or even be harmful (yes, I am looking at you, homeopathy).

To take a simple example that we have doubtless all seen: a few hundred people are piling out of a sports stadium, a lecture hall, a theatre, a concert venue to get some refreshments. There are three stands equally spaced along a wall, all selling the same drinks and snacks. Almost everyone gathers at the first one they reach, and they are content to wait ten minutes to be served rather than walk the short distance down to the second or the third stand, where they would be served immediately and therefore would have more time to enjoy their break before the interval bell rings.

But back to the watch. It’s not exactly as if I don’t have form here in ditching technology once it becomes ubiquitous. Back in May last year, I talked at length about Digital Quitting (as opposed to a simple detox) and my experiences in leaving Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and, most difficult of all, WhatsApp.

As I said at the time, leaving the messaging app was mostly about “gaining back not exactly time but a certain kind of mental space from the smartphone equivalent of a toddler constantly tugging at your trouser and calling out your name so you will look at a something utterly normal they just found on the floor.”

What surprised me most about leaving WhatsApp was not so much the withdrawal one experiences when casting aside anything that has become habitual to the point of entangling itself in the very fabric of your life, but rather the reactions of some people, including friends of mine, who took it personally and were deeply offended that I was not longer on the platform.

No danger of that with no longer wearing a watch, even one as smart as the Apple Watch (unless Tim Cook is about to FaceTime me to personally berate me over my tech choices).

Talking of which, I have elsewhere questioned the need for an iPhone at all (or indeed any smartphone), and I think often of switching away to the Light Phone, which appeals to me immensely. It is only really the better quality and cheaper calls that I get with FaceTime over a ‘real’ mobile phone, especially when calling friends and family abroad, that has, so far, stopped me from making the leap.

But apart from no longer wanting to be bugged by the constant notifications and nudges, the reason for putting aside my Apple Watch is naturally wrapped up in why I got the thing in the first place. After COVID, I had slipped into some bad habits and exercised nowhere near as much or as often as I had done before. I needed something to get me back on my feet and push me into good routines, with clear goals in mind.

I cannot bear the idea of a personal coach, and I have a horror of the inside of gyms, so the Watch, combined with Apple Fitness, was ideal. From the off, I got a much better sense of where I was physically, and had achievable targets set out for me in an appealing manner via the different rings, without the need to share or compare. Soon I was in a much better place, and my fitness slowly climbed up to, and beyond, the levels I had set myself when I bought the device.

Now, I am in a good place. I have integrated beneficial exercise habits into my day-to-day in a way that is sustainable and so no longer fear I will slip back into the bad old ways. Consequently I don’t fret over being without something that keeps me on the straight and narrow.

I do wonder if I will pick up my Apple Watch again. It won’t be a defeat if I do, but I want it to be for the best reasons, rather than simply because I got used to it and feel odd and dislocated without its presence.

Mind you, there is one thing that bothers me: I’m going to miss February’s Move goal, and I know I’ll now never have that little shield for my collection. Will I ever be able to live with myself?