Written by Paul Currington
I’m standing outside a Starbucks looking for the sign that tells me how late they're open. I need a place to sit for a couple hours because I'm working on an essay about how Google has stopped people from asking each other for help. I look all over the door for the hours until I find these words right at knee level: Download our app to find the hours for this location.
This is exactly what I am not going to do. I don't need Starbucks selling my personal info to some amoral data merchant with ties to the dark web. The last time I downloaded some company's app was at Home Depot when I was looking for a drain snake. Within 20 minutes I was inundated with ads and emails for products named, “Clog Dog” and “Pipe Assassin.”
That was the final indignation I was going to suffer for having a smartphone. Over the last couple of years I felt like I was being ad stalked by the entire internet. No matter what I read, watched, or searched for, moments later, an ad would pop up in my life that was linked to what I'd just seen.
If I Google “Vegetarian chili” I suddenly start seeing ads for Ozempic.
If I read an article on how to get rid of termites, I get a 15% off email from U-Haul.
I watch a video about a family with 18 kids, and I get a coupon for a vasectomy.
Every time this happened, it reminded me of one night in 1985. I was sitting at home when I got a call from my girlfriend to pick her up at a friend's house. I got the directions, ran out to my car, and drove over. When I knocked on the door, a woman who looked to be in her 70s opened it. She was holding can of Tab and had a big smile on her face.
“Well, hello,” she said in a voice that sounded like she was way too happy to see me. “Come on in!”
I knew I should leave because I had the wrong house but the absolute joy this woman showed at seeing me was kind of drawing me in. I didn't know what else to say except, “Is Ellie here?”
The woman said, “No, but Don is.”
She turned around and nodded at Don who was in the living room sitting at card table. He looked up and waved to me. “Hey, come on in and have a drink with me and Sharon.”
What is going on here?!?! Did I just stumble into some Twilight Zone elderly game night? Am I about to be kidnapped, held in a basement, and forced to play dominoes every Saturday? Why are they so happy to see me?? No one had ever been this happy to see me so I knew something had to be up.
All I could think to do in that moment stammer out, “Sorry wrong house.” Then I ran back to my car and peeled out. I don't know what would have happened if I'd walked up to that card table but I'm pretty sure I'd be talking about it years later in therapy.
And that’s how I feel every time some business asks me to download their app. All I see in my mind is Sharon with her can of Tab singing, “Well, hello! Want to come inside and save 10% of your next purchase?”
After years of dealing with unwanted ads and app scams, I finally bought a flip phone. I couldn't believe how happy this ridiculous, almost useless phone made me. Not only was it impossible to download apps, it was impossible to connect to the internet. Free at last! No ads. No apps. No distraction. In the nine months I'd been using Flippy, I'd written more stories and essays than I had in years.
Since there was no way for me to find out the hours from the door, I walk into the Starbucks to ask a barista. I smiled knowing that I'd just found the opening to my essay about how we don't ask each other questions anymore.
“How late are you guys open?”
The young woman smiles and says, “8:30.”
“Perfect! I'll have a tall americano.”
She rings me up and says, “Do you have our app?”
“No.”
“Why not? It's free,” she says.
I pause for a moment, wondering if I should tell her about Don and Sharon and Home Depot. Instead, I give her a break and say, “I can't download the app because I'm working with this.”
I whip out Flippy.
She stares at me like I just pulled out a ham sandwich, and then bursts out laughing. No judgement, no eyerolling, just a big, genuine laugh. Which makes me start lauging. I love that we're both laughing and that we're almost certainly laughing at two different things.
She gives me my coffee and I sit down to start writing this very blog post on how Google is keeping us from connecting through simple questions like “How late are you open?”and “Is there a good bookstore around here?” While I'm mulling this over, I realize how much I want to tell my friends what just happened. I want to send my girlfriend a photo of the words on the door that started all this, but I can't because it’s a huge pain in butt to write on this flip phone. It does have a camera but everything comes out fuzzy like Flippy just woke up with a hangover. I have so many things to say but I don't want to yell-text into this phone, and can't bring myself to take 14 pictures before I get one in focus.
So I decide that I've come to the end of my digital hunger strike. I can't go back to a full-on death-by-a-thousand-apps phone. And there's no point in setting up time limits or minimalist apps that I can easily bypass. I need a phone that lets me share stories with friends, send photos of all the weirdness in the world around me, and maybe even give me a parking app so I don't have to hotspot a tablet every time I go into the city.
After spending many hours on the internet looking for a phone that will keep me from spending many hours on the internet, I finally found Sleke, a phone that will let me share random thoughts and stories with friends without Don and Sharon getting in the way.
I'm anxiously awaiting its arrival. And when I'm done setting it up, I'm going back to Starbucks to show that barista that I've rejoined the big flat phone generation. I hope we share another laugh. But I'm still not buying my coffee with an app.