(Originally posted 6 February 2016) Within hours of arriving in Vietnam, I either lost my iPhone, or another commandeered it. I had it in the pocket of my sweatshirt which I took on and off as we moved inside and outside of terminals and buses, but before we reached the city it was missing.
Most of today’s generation Xers are like me, pretty attached to their phones, sometimes without realising how much. We check what everyone is up to on Facebook, see what today’s weather is going to be, take photos of anything interesting, stay connected to contacts via WhatsApp, find your way around using the maps, and know what transactions are coming off your bank accounts. I also use my phone for listening to audiobooks and managing our Expedia travel bookings.
Not having a smartphone, is quite devastating. Separation anxiety set in quite quickly and my husband was kind enough to let me just hold his phone for a few hours. We quickly realised this was no solution. Besides my habitual dependency on the device, one reason we do want to each have a phone is so that if we part ways during our travels we have a means of contacting each other. This is especially relevant considering my husband’s negative sense of direction – if he got lost we may never see him again. Ever!
I am now the proud owner of a Samsung. We got me set up with a Vietnamese SIM card and data (which is so cheap here compared to South Africa). I was online again, back to my voyeuristic tendencies on Facebook and feeling right with the world.
Then we went to an island with no connectivity… another blog post for another day.
Featured image source: https://pixabay.com/photos/tech-wifi-technology-communication-875480/