When setting up a new phone leads to tears

When I first embraced digital minimalism, I thought about buying a simple flip “dumb phone”. But I couldn’t find one that carried only WhatsApp and a camera so continued using my Google Pixel 6. I have since learned that even so-called “smart phones” can be diabolically dumb. At least the tech networks that connect them can be. 

Allow me to explain. I can do that now that I have stopped crying, re-attached my head to my body, and lowered my blood pressure with non-stop medication. I mean meditation. 

The day after arriving in Costa Rica in late June for a video shoot at Finca Cántaros, the environmental education not-for-profit founded by my daughter, my phone went wonky. It began to re-start itself constantly. I was immediately thrown into a Defcon 4 state of anxiety.

What the heck am I going to do without a phone for the next five weeks? In rural Costa Rica?

Among the many nightmares that kept me awake was the thought of navigating our giant Toyota Forerunner (which already scares the crap out of me to drive) down treacherous mountain switchbacks behind a slow truck or bus, sometimes with my precious granddaughter in the back seat. What if something happened and I needed to call someone? 

As a precaution, and using a low-tech tool known as a ‘pen’, I quickly wrote down all the important phone numbers I would never be able to extract from my aging brain. I stuck the list in my purse. (I can still remember my cousin’s Toronto phone number from when we were six-years-old but Rodney’s number is in the ether.)

As other preventive measures, I transferred WhatsApp to my tablet, removed almost all of my phone apps, and limited using it as much as possible. I also began chanting magical voodoo-like spells over it like please don’t die today! Of course it did go kaput. And it died literally moments before I could activate the new Pixel 9 Rodney brought me when he joined me here. 

Do not wait for your phone’s ultimate demise. It’s much easier to activate a new phone from an old phone or things can get insane. Which is precisely what happened to me.

Our Canadian service provider, Rogers, did not receive the memo that a dead phone is a useless phone. How hard can it be for an AI bot to make the critical leap to thinking that if someone is loading up a new phone, maybe there is no longer an old one to receive text verifications? That’s when my frustrated hysteria was really unleashed.

Luckily for me, I have a tech angel back in Vancouver. She jumped in her car, drove to a mall, and physically asked a live human being at Rogers to generate the necessary QR code to get my damn phone connected.

I learned a number of things from my tech meltdown. 

First, my husband truly is a saint. It’s a testament to our 44-year marriage that it could withstand the histrionics caused by what Perplexity AI identifies as “the phone set-up dilemma.” (Of course, our marriage also survived ArriveCan. Fellow Canadians will cringe at the memory of the glitch-cursed pandemic travel app which our previous government foisted on us. I insisted at the time that a marriage counselor should come with the app.)

Second, there actually exists a condition known as nomophobia. “No mobile phone” phobia runs right alongside “low battery anxiety”, a term which should be self-explanatory along with the well-known related condition FOMO. Apparently, these forms of anxiety are more common in younger people. Older folks like me can have our tech anxiety triggered by a life time of issues and the losses that come with aging.

The fear of losing autonomy is huge. It becomes magnified significantly with anything tech-related. We need others to help us. And who wants to ask for that assistance from a teenage grandchild whose diapers you changed?

I have never gotten over hating feeling utterly dependent on Rodney. This dates back to being a foreign service wife and being held hostage by his briefcase. Every night, he would bring it home from the Embassy filled with old newspapers to read and other information only he could access. I was just the wife. 

Finally, I learned that in the interest of maintaining positive self-esteem, it’s not helpful to incessantly call yourself a stupid idiot for not being able to activate a new phone. I tramped around the balcony of our cabina calling myself terrible names while my saint-like husband just rolled his eyes and our tech angel told me to stop beating up on myself.

I’ve been reassured by everyone that no one escapes the tech hell that is the new phone set-up dilemma. Is it a relief to know I’m not alone in feeling like a dolt? Absolutely. 

More comforting is that I have another three years at least until I have to go through it all over again.