Hey Siri…!

6:30 AM the alarm goes on; my head still hurts because of yesterday but I have class and I cannot miss it. I take my phone I turn off the alarm and I say Hey Siri delay the alarm another 5 minutes, please, just to rest a little more. It sounds again, I get into Instagram to see some videos from yesterday, to WhatsApp to see if someone has written and some Twitter just to see if today there is something special. Little by little I wake up more and get out of bed. I ask Siri to play some music while I am taking a shower, I get dressed and say good morning to my mother, I take a banana, and Siri reminds me that there are 5 minutes left to take the bus, so I start running because I don’t want to lose it. When I arrive, I put on my headphones and some music, if not the trip is kind of boring. I get to the university and take out the computer to take notes, I also have WhatsApp and Instagram on the computer but I prefer to pay attention. At the end some of us went out to take a break, my friend Clara shows me photos of the day before that she went to the mountains with her boyfriend who had a great time, but I had already seen everything on Instagram so I was not interested at all. The 10 minutes of rest are over and we return to class. It was time for history, something boring so I decided to check Instagram for a while and look at some clothes. Next class, drawing something less boring. As we have a practice, I can have the phone to listen to some music. With Clara I have almost no topic of conversation… so I’m going to be on my own. Siri reminds me that I don’t have any more classes that Tuesday so I will go to the bus quickly to get home soon. I decide to watch a few YouTube videos but I have some headache so I prefer instead to listen to music. I get home and my mother had already arrived, she asks me how about the day but I only think about the plate of lentils I have and the chapter of the series that I am going to watch. I quickly tell her that well and I follow my own. After spending the afternoon doing college things, it is time for dinner. I had not spoken to my mother all day and suddenly Siri said…It’s the birthday of your contact Mum! I looked at my mother, I realize what day was, I quickly hug her and congratulate her, her look was sad with teary eyes. I think she realized that I had forgotten her birthday and I won’t remember it thanks to Siri. Her sad look changes to angry and she starts screaming at me. That I cannot be so much with the phone … that I don’t live in the real world. That my 10,000 followers on Instagram don’t care so much about my life that Siri wouldn’t have to remind me that today is my mother’s birthday. Blah blah blah. She always gets angry with me. But this time was different, my mother decides to take my phone off. I quickly scream that she can’t do that to me, but she has already taken it away from me and is very angry.

It has been a week since my mother took my phone, the first days were horrible I had to buy an alarm clock and memorize what time the buses pass. In classes, I could not get into Instagram because I had also restricted access. So, I could only talk to my classmates. That of course I did not know anything about them because I did not see them on Instagram. I also missed Siri’s voice. But as the week went by, I looked for other alternatives to not be thinking on my phone, on the bus I read a book and that made the journey even shorter. In class, I talked to my friends who were almost no longer because I was never interested in them. While eating my mother told me things about when I was my age and the truth is that I loved it and I replaced Siri with a nice agenda. I began to feel better physically, I slept better, my head hurt less and I felt that every minute I talked to my friends was important to take advantage of because then when I got home, I would not know more about them. When my mother decided to return my phone, I decided to analyze how far I had arrived with it, and why.

I felt that everything I had to share through social media didn’t matter that much. That is why now on my Instagram I share weekly tips to decreases the addiction to the phone and that no one can forget the birthday of a family member or friend, and people thanked me a lot because although none of us knew, it was a reality that we were hooked on this new drug.