Numerous times in the past couple years I’ve turned off predictive texting on my phone. A week ago I turned it off for good and good riddance. Another grumpy old man rant, yes? Well, yes, but I can already start to see the difference in my brain and I ask you to consider the far-reaching effects of such technology on your brain and the life.

“But it means I can text faster.”

Yes, that is true. And that is exactly why I used it for years too. Then I started to notice how my brain started to look for finished words when I was typing on a computer program where that was not an option, and when it wasn’t an option I got impatient and frustrated at having to – gasp! – type out the WHOLE WORD! Hells bells. Then I started to notice getting frustrated when I was physically writing with a pen on paper, no device of any kind involved, and how I’d leave words unfinished to start the next word, just like when using predictive texting on a phone. And my spelling in general has gotten worse and worse. Enough.

This is a very, very small part of the tech dominance of our society, but just that has had very clear, very far reaching impact on my life, and not for the better. On the other end, when I receive a text from someone, I often think, is this what they really wanted to say or is it what the computers predicted as an adequate response so they went with that. When texting with my wife, or mom, or certain friends, my phone will offer “I love you” at times as a pre-filled suggestion. Are there people who can’t be bothered to actually type this out to express their feelings? Most certainly there is, and how sad is that. And so predictive text is out.

Does it take me longer to text now? Yup, a few seconds. Well, actually, that’s only when I have my smartphone on me. Recently I bought a flip phone for $20 and for $15 I get unlimited talk and text. I’ve had it a few weeks now and only bring it, rather than my smartphone, to work, and the results have been wonderful. I still have the ability to connect with the few people I may actually need to, while not having any of the distractions. Instead of automatically opening some random app (usually social media or the news) I do what I used to do before these things took over our lives – I take out a piece of paper and write, or doodle, or just sit with myself and breathe, and feel my body relax. I’ve reclaimed a very small part of my humanity and it has only made me hunger for more. A child of the 80s and 90s, I know what life was like beforehand and I’d trade what we have now for that world in a heartbeat.

I still have my smartphone, and will likely keep it, but may disconnect the service and use it in specific places and with specific purpose. For now, I go to work and when I come home I check it, like we used to do with our answering machines, or, like we used to do with what, for me, might be the height of technology – AOL Instant Messenger. Ah, what a time. Most days I haven’t missed much, and certainly haven’t missed anything of real importance, while feeling, little by little, more connected with the actual world and with my physical being. And it all started with eliminating predictive text.