I grew up in a time when the world was virtually devoid of mobile phones. As I grew up, the first push-button and eventually touchscreen phones started to appear. However, in my early childhood, the world of phones and computers was virtually unknown to me. I played outside or read. I am of a generation that had to cope with boredom and frustration in a lonely and resilient way. Experts say that, like my peers, I have stronger psychological mechanisms as a result.

Boredom for creativity

“It’s important to be bored,” my husband explains to our daughter. She doesn’t get it. She demands space and attention. But we want her to have to invent her own form of entertainment. To think, to develop her brain. It’s the right thing to do. Constant mental effort stimulates organic and independent problem solving in a family environment. Boredom is the driving force for imagination.

The emergence of the internet and mobile phones

Smart mobile phones and the internet have completely changed humanity. They have marked history in various aspects from economics to the functioning of individuals. They have changed communication and the understanding of the world. Relationships between people develop through the screen. We don’t look each other in the eye and lose the essence of humanity. Paradoxically, we have more friends thanks to mobile phones, but we feel lonelier. Often people think that happiness is based on the number of followers.

Before the era of smartphones, children had less digital stimuli and more direct interaction with their surroundings. They played in the street, they ran, they lived. This was convenient for minors. They learned to manage problems and frustrations. To make their own decisions. They developed emotional autonomy as a result. The ability to understand and regulate their own feelings.

━━ ( Source: Ben Wicks /  Unsplash+ )

The benefits of life without a smartphone

  1. We’ve made peace with boredom

Doctor’s waiting rooms, long car journeys, afternoons without a plan. Boredom. No phone and no games on it. We sat and looked out the window. We let our minds wander. We wondered how to get out of it. A game that could be played on the go. A dream. Or an idea that could be implemented later. It taught us that the brain can entertain itself too. Because creativity often shows up in the gaps. Never in noise.

2. Strong social skills

We only had landlines. We called and talked to whoever answered. We solved arguments in person and also learned to read body language when someone didn’t want to talk. We knew how to say difficult things out loud. Mostly. The ones who couldn’t did it in silence. But most of us could carry on difficult conversations directly.

3. Great memory

We had to memorize phone numbers or look them up in the phone book. We also remembered directions, birthdays and other things. No Facebook comments, no digital list of phone numbers. We just used our brains all the time. It’s similar to memory with orientation. No navigation. Landmarks, street names. We had to use our brains.

4. Concentration.

Nothing distracted us. If we were reading a book, we were reading. Attention was not scattered to multiple points. The findings, published in the journal Cognition, suggest that individuals raised in low-distraction environments show better sustained attention abilities and greater resilience to the costs associated with task switching, with measurable differences in patterns of prefrontal cortex activation during deep work compared to those who were accustomed to frequent digital distractions from an early age.

5. Imagination

No content. At most a few cartoons and movies on TV. Quite possibly a Venezuelan telenovela later on. But enough time to spend making up plays and stories in my own head. Imagining scenarios, inventing characters, telling stories. Creativity was always involved.