by Leigh Wingfeld
An update on my attempts to switch to a flip phone: I continue to face struggles with issues of switching to a phone plan to support the Wi-Fi hotspot I need. However, I’ve continued to try to detach myself from my phone through various means. I’ve started purposely letting my phone battery die. To some that might sound extreme, but I can’t be on my phone if it doesn’t have charge. Typically I try to keep my phone charged until ~6pm, as I call my dad around that time. After that if it dies, it stays dead until I plug it in when I go to bed. I’ve found this method helps me stay more connected in the afternoons when I’m spending time with friends or doing homework.
Because of my flip phone struggles, I redirected and started using a portable CD player. I came to the realization very quickly that I love listening to music within albums. Previously I listened to playlists, which isn’t inherently bad, but music is an art. Situating a song within the album it belongs to can imply a whole new meaning to the song that you lose otherwise. I will admit the portable CD player does have its issues. It tends to skip tracks if the player is shaken at all, and this makes it hard to walk outside with, but works fine on a treadmill. If you are using a battery powered player, it burns through batteries very fast. From my daily usage, I would go through 2 AA batteries every two days, which makes this system very wasteful. In middle school, I used a cassette walkman to listen to music. I faced similar benefits and issues as a CD player.
I think that an MP3 player might work better. I’m researching which one would be the best to get currently, but it seems that old apple MP3 players are the most popular. In my opinion, the sound quality of a player is much better than that of streaming. Next month, I’ll hope to have a flip phone, an update on the music solution, and other resources for going analog.