why do I bring my phone everywhere I go?

It´s so normal for me to bring my phone everywhere, I don´t even question it, I just do it. Put my phone and my keys in the pocket of my jacket, the two things I don´t leave the house without. The keys make sense, I´d like to enter the apartment again at some point later on.

But why do I always bring my phone everywhere I go?

Do I need it when I go to the grocery store just down the street? No.

Do I need it when I´m going to dance class? No.

I don´t even need it when I´m going to work. Or actually, maybe I would have to use it for two factor authentication sometimes. But even then, I could keep my phone turned off in my bag and just turn it on when I actually need it.

What sparked this string of thoughts were some advertisement posters of a phone company, they are currently hanging all over Berlin. They are trying to convince you to buy a better phone plan, more data, so you can spend more and more time online, always connected, every second of your life so you don´t miss a single thing. Because that would be horrible, right?

This really made me think. It has become so normal to be online, when I leave the house and I don´t have my phone with me, it feels weird. I feel naked in a way (which feels ridiculous to say, but I hope, some of you might agree) as if I forgot to put on a shirt or shoes (the latter did, unfortunately, already happen to me).

Then, last week, I went on a little trip by myself, three days, just to get out of the city for a bit. I went to the coast of north-eastern Germany, and challenged myself to use my phone as little as possible. It was just a little experiment to see if I could “survive” without my phone, because slowly, I was feeling over it. It was a seed that planted itself in my head a long time ago and kept growing. At first, I was just over Social Media - I was so addicted to scrolling and felt like I couldn´t escape. That was over a year ago. I fixed the relationship I had with Social Media by simply not using it anymore which worked out quite well for me. But slowly, over the course of the past months, I feel like I´m over smartphones in general.

Anyways, back to that trip I went on last week. I felt so calm, so connected to myself and the world around me by disconnecting from my phone. I listened to conversations, witnessed little moments and human interactions by the people around me, and enjoyed just existing. No urge to check my phone, because my phone was in my backpack in my hostel dorm while I spent all day at the beach. I thought I might get bored, but I forgot how nice it felt to simply just be. Daydream, like I did when I was a kid. Journal, draw, and loose track of time. Getting childishly excited about going to get some ice cream. Swimming in the freezing cold ocean, and feeling the sun warm up my body afterwards.

I was on the train back to Berlin feeling so well rested, so inspired when I decided I wanna live as (smart)phone free as possible. I´m not quite sure if it´ll be possible to live without it 100%, maybe it would be, but it might not be super realistic, since I have so many things tied to my phone - bank account, train tickets, the list goes on.

I wrote this to keep myself accountable in May of 2025, a few months later I created this blog, and thought I´d share this. Why do we bring our phones everywhere? Why is it so normalized to be available all the time?