Can we live a month without a smartphone? An American company that produces yogurt according to the ancient Icelandic recipe, skyr, has decided to reward anyone who manages to do so with nine thousand euros. The company is called Siggys, named after the founder, and it is It is possible to apply until January 31st. It’s not clear what yogurt has to do with giving up smartphones, but the website says that just as skyr is better using fewer artificial ingredients, our lives improve with fewer digital distractions.
The topic of being without a smartphone, of going on an app diet, comes up for discussion every now and then. Last year a journalist from New York Times who deals with technology, decided to try to spend a month without a smartphone, using only a normal mobile phone, without apps and games, and told how it changed her life. For the better, at the beginning, because she was less distracted by useless things, she didn’t have constant notifications to call her attention, she could dedicate herself to something else and to others with all of herself. But then it was literally impossible to do many essential things. For example, a bank transfer and all those online operations for which two-factor authentication is required and therefore when you access the service you receive a message on your mobile phone to confirm your identity.
Without smartphones, all WhatsApp chats would disappear, which have become our way of maintaining friendships but also professional relationships and therefore smart working would be almost impossible. To find an unknown road we would no longer have an app to guide us, we would need a paper map, but they no longer sell them. We would be cut off from our children’s electronic school records. We couldn’t rent scooters and bicycles, or even recharge our electric cars. To book a trip we should go to an agency (do they still exist?).
In short, the real question to ask is not whether we can live a month without a smartphone but whether we should do it. For what? It is said that we spend too many hours every day (between 5 and 6) but the problem isn’t the smartphone itself, it’s what we do with it. It can only be a means to hypnotize us with social media notifications and TikTok videos. Or it can be a tool to study, inform ourselves, work, connect with others and keep fit. So why should we give it up? The point is really learn to use it by becoming immune to social media algorithms and the clickbait of news sites.