The screen on my fetish/love object is just bigger than yours (27 inches), which means I can’t drive a car with it or use it in a crosswalk thus becoming a human weapon of mass distraction but other than that…I’m clearly just as obsessed and addicted to my device. Hello my name is James…
How did I realize I’m powerless over my 27” iMac? All it took was 3 days without it for the first time since I bought it back in 2015 while it went in for “hard-drive-ectomy” last week, and what ensued were 3 excruciating days in which I experienced alternating spells of:
- Sadness
- Anger
- Anxiety
- Frustration
- Isolation
- Boredom
- Intense whining
…so there was that little clue.
Then when I finally got my computer back, oh how the serotonin did flow! Life was once again worth living, God was in his/her heaven and all was right with the world. So yeah…maybe a red flag.
But suddenly I felt like the biggest of hypocrites. For years I have passed judgement on millennials who spend literally ALL day staring down at their phones, and I do share some of that device fixation when I forget to bring my phone with me in the car or out on a hike, I manage, but there’s a palpable, emotional void created where my phone should be.
But I confess, it’s nothing like the 27” void where my iMac once resided when it was gone. A sad, dusty outline around the spot where the stand touched desktop, external devices standing silent like tombstones waiting to be reunited, USB cables dangling haphazardly across my keyboard platform. It was command central, not just my livelihood, but my playground, my laboratory, my connection…closed for business.
Who knew that sending my computer off to the repair shop would be worse than sending your kid off to summer camp? Maybe the kid sitting in his cabin staring at his phone.