The Pleasures of a Digital Vacation,
Prompted by Technology Failing
What Living Without a Phone Can Teach Us
You'll notice we haven't published in a while. Part of this is due to life interfering, and part was due to taking a digital break.
This digital break originally did not happen by choice. It all began one morning. I looked at my cell phone to check the weather, laid it back on the desk, and went about my business. When I returned to it about an hour later, the phone was stuck in an infinite boot loop. That means the phone would only boot as far as the google logo before shutting down and rebooting itself.
Undaunted, I rushed to my google drive to ensure I had a current backup. I could see my backup in my Drive folder. So I tried to boot into recovery mode to no avail. That meant there was NO WAY to factory reset my phone. When I went to research my woes, I found that this was a known issue. LG, the manufacturer of my Nexus 5x handset, was currently facing a class action suit because this was a known issue caused by a manufacturing defect, and LG had run out of the part needed to repair my phone.
I reached out to Google Support. They offered to accept a return of my 2 year old phone to solve the problem. Still, that left me without a phone until Google could get a replacement out. And to top it all off, we were facing a long weekend, and even with expedited shipping, it was doubtful that Google would be able to get a replacement phone to me in time to have it for the Holiday. No worries--I still had a PC and Internet, as well as a landline, so that meant the weekend should still be okay.
I think we all fail to realize exactly how much we depend on our cell phones to run our daily lives. Even with a working PC, there were many things I could no longer do until I had a new cell phone in hand.
I have most of my accounts protected by two-factor authentication. That means that you need a code along with your username and password to log in. In most cases, that code is sent to your cell phone and expires within 15 minutes. Not having that cell phone to receive the codes meant I couldn't log into a LOT of websites, including my web hosting control panel, my credit card account, my domain name registrar, and Twitter. Of course, in many cases, two factor authentication can be set to use either your phone or your e-mail address to receive the log in code, but delivery method is usually established when you set up two factor authentication, and of course, you need to be able to log into your account to change the code delivery method. And you can't log into an account to change it without being able to receive a code.
Beyond two factor authentication, there are many other apps and services that are cell phone reliant. Thankfully, many loyalty cards allow you to use a phone number in place of a physical or digital card. But not all do. Many fast food loyalty programs depend on a digital card. And that means you cannot access them without your phone. Balances and promo codes are just unavailable without the app. I DID discover that Regal Movies will look up your account with an e-mail address if you do not have your card or the app when purchasing tickets, but you really DO need your phone to redeem credits or take advantage of app-only concession deals.
And Uber? Forget trying to schedule an Uber without having your cell phone. You just cannot do it. Not being able to take Uber when you live in a public-transportation-challenged area is NOT a good thing. I had to change some weekend plans when taking an Uber became out of the question.
