Why I Have A Phone AND And iPod (P.S. I've Never Downloaded A Song In My Life)

To the majority of the world, when I pull out my Apple iPod and my Samsung Phone I look like some CRAZY TECH LADY. The funny thing is that the reverse is true. The reason I have two different devices is to limit my media intake.

2008 - 2019: My Devices

Born in 1995, I am right in that crack between the generation that used no phones, the generation that used flip phones, and the generation that used smartphones. 

My memories of electronics as a kid were: a boxed TV with videocassettes that eventually become DVDs, a box computer that I learned to type on and wrote lists and stories on, and on one or two occasions my aunt visiting and bringing her laptop (I was in awe).

I remember eventually seeing advertisements of business men walking around with flip phones. The phones looked so sleek. I was disappointed that when my dad got a wireless phone for work it wasn't a flip phone but was rather boxy.

2008

Fall of 2008 got my first fancy camera where you could actually see how the picture turned out right after you took it. It was an amazing, exciting adventure for me. I remember bringing it to school and taking class pictures with it. Having that device was truly a wonder whirl of fancy tech and fun.

Within months of getting my first fancy camera (which I bought with my own money), my mom gave me my first flip phone so that I could get in touch with her after softball practice. At this point, most of my classmates had slide phones, but I was always at least a little behind the pack when it came to technology (and I pride myself in that).

My first flip phone was very special to me, even if it was hard to text on. To me, texting was ultimate modernity and fanciness. It was like being a part of a whole different world of cool. I didn't text a whole lot on that phone. My second flip phone was a dozen times more special to me, because it was sleek. 

2010

I probably got it a year or two later. I don't remember if my first phone started getting slow or if I just wanted a sleeker model. I still think it's beautiful to the touch.  I think the phone was actually a hand-me-down from my mom when she upgraded to a model with a keyboard. It's smooth and feels good in your hands. Opening and shutting a flip phone also has a satisfying feeling to it for some reason. Unless it had a slide out keyboard (which had an extra-satisfying sensation), I preferred the flip. 

2012

I think I was in late high school when my mom did another hand-me-down. This was actually my favorite phone of all the phone's I've ever had. It had a QWERTY keyboard which made texting easy. The screen was small, so it didn't hurt my eyes, and the features were simple, so I didn't have to worry about the temptation to waste time on apps (I didn't have any apps).

2013

2013 was a year that changed so much in my relationship with technology. In August of 2013, for the first time I went into a Apple store and actually bought a product.

If my reasoning was the same then as it is now, I bought the iPod Touch partially because it cost less than the iPhone while carrying the majority of the same features and partially because I still wanted my phone to be simply for phone calls and not serve as a temptation to waste time on apps or social media.

If I wanted people to be able to get a hold of me while I basically detached from technology, I could simply leave my iPod at home and bring my QWERTY around with me.

(^^ answer to the blog title)

I used on iPod a lot once I bought it. My freshman year, snapchat was the primary mode of communication my friends and I used to meet up. This was before snapchat got all weird and added the "snap story" feature of such. (As you can probably tell, I'm not a fan of those changes. I felt like it totally depersonalized the app. People don't have to intentionally choose to send you a snap anymore. But let's get back on topic.)

A month after I got my iPod, I started using Twitter and Instagram.

2016

To be quite forward, I was devastated when TracFone refused to stop providing services for my QWERTY phone in 2016. When I returned from my semester abroad, I was informed they had sent me a smart phone in the mail. I adamantly DID NOT want a touch screen.

It felt so unreal having no buttons and the screen simply changing on touch. The screen also seemed to glare in my eyes way more than on my previous phone. (Yes, I have learned since then that you can turn the brightness down.) I wanted my phone to be simply a phone not something overloaded with addicting apps. All throughout the rest of college, I was jealous when I saw a friend with a QWERTY phone. 

I never uploaded any social media apps to this phone and barely ever (less than once a month) used it to go on the internet.

2017

In 2017, after many years of valiant service (5 to be exact) and still with a decent battery as I recall, my iPod hit it's last straw. I am thankful that it worked throughout our family trip and long enough to me to upload all my photos to the computer. A week later, I tried to turn it on, and it was as simple as that... the screen would not turn on.

To this day, I consider my 5th generation iPod touch among my top two most "loyal" pieces of technology when it comes to longevity and efficiency. It was also beautiful (a beautiful turquoise). I still keep it in my drawer as a memento and a thank you to it's incredible five years of faithful and efficient service.

That month, I debated whether I should get another iPod or buy an iPhone to replace both my devices. For the same reason as listed above (to make it easier for me to limit technology usage while still being reachable by phone), I decided to get another iPod.

It turns out this was the iPod touch 6th generation. It didn't seem that different from my 5th generation iPod. The downfall was the battery life of this iPod. I didn't realize how incredibly lucky I had been with my iPod 5 until only ONE year into having my iPod 6 the device began to lose it's charge abruptly out of nowhere. It would go from 20 percent to 80 percent to shutting off within FIVE SECONDS (still haven't figured out what wacky business was going on there) and it did this multiple times per hour even right after being fully charged.

I went in to get the battery fixed, but when I was told they would instead replace my iPod for the price of the battery, I didn't want to let go of my "personalized" iPod. I waited another year. The iPod battery no longer does it's wacky rising and falling; however, the battery life is typically only one to two hours long and it takes a minimum of FIVE hours to fully recharge it. (After two hours of being plugged in, I am lucky if it has made it to 40 percent.)

2019

Around spring of 2019, I couldn't handle the incredible slowness of the smart phone TracFone had sent me. I had waited it out an extra year, because I didn't want to spend money on getting a new phone, but now this phone wasn't holding it's charge well, was charging as slowly as my iPod, and was just in general "slow."

After months of looking at phones online but not buying one, I finally decided that my phone wasn't worthy of being called a phone. I went to Target and bought a new one.

Was it worth it? Yes. My new phone holds a charge decently and, most importantly, charges very quickly. It's generally pretty speedy too. The phone is not an upgrade in regards to appearance or feel (I prefer smaller phones and this one's slightly larger than my previous one), but it actually does it's job and does it well. That's really all that matters. So, yes, it is an upgrade. And, yes, it was worth it.

New Apple Products

Apple came out with a new iPod in 2019. I've been highly considering replacing my iPod (one year later). I went in to Apple, and they were going to charge me almost the full price of the iPod just to replace it with a more efficient 6th generation iPod. That seemed like a cheat. 

I might as well pay a bit more and get the iPod 7 which will probably last a lot longer. That said, reviewed of the iPod 7 say it isn't honestly that different or better quality than the iPod 6. It's just  ore likely to be compatible with the new software updates Apple requires every few years (or months). Have you noticed how Apple does that???

The iPhone 6S is on sale for under two hundred dollars with TracFone, but if you think about it, that is also the 2015 model (the same year as the iPod 6), and reviews say it will only be compatible with software updates for the next year or (maximum) two.

All in all, is it worth getting a new iPod? The functions of my iPod are simple. It has a decent camera, and I can access free things on it that I can't access on non-Apple devices like Podcasts or some Audiobooks.

It would be pointless to have Instagram on my Phone, because the camera quality on my phone is so low. It's just such a plain phone -- which I like for a phone.

So there it is. I don't know what my next technology step will be, but I want to be careful that I am getting more detached from technology as opposed to more attached to it. Apple products (maybe most technology products?) cheat people every few years by outdating software and leaving older devices no longer "software compatible."

That said, I still want to be able to carry my iPod around the house with it's easy transport, small screen, and good audio in order to listen to my favorite audiobooks. And I still need (is that too dramatic of a word?) a camera that actually works.

I'm not sure my next step. Maybe I can get this iPod to live a year or two longer. When it won't even turn on, that's when you know it's really dead and needs replacing. I'm not going to spend $500+ dollars on a new device. Max me out at $300. I guess I'll just have to see where the world of technology goes. Will I make it another few months with an deficient iPod? WHO KNOWS.

SCRUPULOSITY (Spiritual OCD)... FROM THE INSIDE

I have a feeling scrupulosity manifests itself a bit differently for everyone. It want to try to describe it the way I experience it so that if anyone else can relate to any of this you know you are not alone. 

One of my favorite definitions of scrupulosity comes from DefendingTheFaith:

"Scrupulosity is characterized by pathological guilt about moral or religious issues. It is personally distressing, objectively dysfunctional, and often accompanied by significant impairment in social functioning. It is typically conceptualized as a moral or religious form of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)...It's a plaguing sense of feeling that one is 'bad', 'guilty', or 'unforgiven.'" - DefendingTheFaith

I experience scrupulosity as a sensation more-so than a thought. I experience it all throughout my body and brain. My scrupulosity (spiritual anxiety) is quite honestly affected not only by the activities I engage in but by the food I put in my body and how much I exercise.

General Feelings Of Guilt 

On a day-to-day basis, I usually experience a sense of being a bad and selfish person. I spend hours on youtube when I know I could be praying. (I spend time on social media to escape anxious thoughts, and yet my time on social media increases my feeling of discontent and "dirtiness.") I don't even set aside time to pray everyday, and I feel dirty knowing this. I am actually sometimes afraid of prayer, because I feel like I will be more susceptible to my anxiety when I open myself up in prayer. 

I also feel that my choice to be a YouTuber and my desire for followers and success in that realm is incompatible with a prayer life. They truly seem incompatible. I feel two-faced if I say yes to both of them, because I come into each of them with completely different mindsets. I don't want to pray one thing and live another way.

If I pray, I will feel guilty for these desires and for acting on them. If I act on them and make youtube videos simply for the thrill of filming and editing and with my (main?) goal being to get subscribers, whilst doing this I must separate from that deep prayer life or I will feel too guilty to go on and will be pulled in half. My guilt will be if I act on my impulses and desires. My guilt will sit before my eyes if I pray. 

An "Episode"

I have described above the general way in which I experience scrupulosity on a daily basis. But this is my "normal." This is my baseline more of less. Unless I go into weeks of detachment from social media and attachment to prayer and spiritual readings, this is typically how I feel.

When I say I want to describe scrupulosity "from the inside," however, I mean I want to describe it from inside an "episode." I don't know if people typically talk about scrupulosity as having "episodes." Anxiety disorders have episodes that we call anxiety attacks, as do panic disorders (panic attacks). 

People with OCD are stereotypically known to go through sorts of "episodes" where they have to repeat an action a certain number of times or say a word or trace and un-trace something to be okay. That said, while I have never heard the term "scrupulosity episode" used before, it seems the most accurate way I can describe my "scrupulosity attacks." These are attacks of feelings inadequacy, of guilt, of dirtiness... and they present themselves in a very specific way through physical sensations.

These episodes don't necessarily happen after I have done something particularly "terrible." I have noticed that I am far more susceptible to them when I eat a lot of junk food, when I am a sloth on the couch for long periods of a time, when I sit in front of screens (worse yet when I sit in front of screens working on perfecting my own social media accounts)...

What I want to do here is simply describe what an episode FEELS like, because the FEELING in one of these episodes is so strong and overwhelming that I can barely get any words to go through my head. The general words or sentences my brain typically has the most access to are "NOT okay," "I want out," or "I'm disgusting." 

I don't usually write poems, but perhaps the sensations are best described in poetry...

I feel like I ought to put a (STOMACH) TRIGGER WARNING here. 

Don't read this while you're eating or in the middle of an anxiety episode. If your stomach is sensitive (or you are not so drawn to the words "stringy" "slimy" and "regurgitate"), you may want to pass on this as well, because the sensations I describe are through brutally honest analogies.

My mouth is dry. My tongue is parched. 

The back of my throat is sensitive

As if my finger were touching it.

Worst of all are my head, stomach, and arms.

My arms feel heavy, SO heavy by my side.

They don't feel wet but there is 

a clammy sensation of disgustingness to them.

It's like there are lead pipes weighing them down

instead of bones.

My fingers and eyes feel dry too.

If I look closely at my hands, 

my fingers might be shaking.

If they're not shaking, 

then the nervous energy is rapped up inside.

Most of that energy is in my arms,

tugging at them and wanting to explode outward

as if I were The Doctor about to regenerate.

My legs feel heavy.

There is lead in them, just like in my arms,

but the lead in both these places TINGLES.

A TERRIBLE tingling sensation

of nervous energy that cannot escape.

A heavy, WEIGHED DOWN tingling:

incongruent with the lead,

worse because of its lightness

like fingers touching the surface of the lead.

I'm trapped in my own body.

My eyes and arms may feel dead, but...

Worse yet. There is my stomach. 

It's hard to picture anything worse than the dead parts,

but my stomach is the most wrenching part of all.

My intestines are worms. 

I can feel the worms wrapped tightly around each other. 

They are trying to wriggle about.

They aren't just in my stomach.

They are in my heart.

My heart is made of wriggly worms, intertwined.

My soul is just like my heart, only more translucent.

Translucent, but showing my true colors...

brown worms wriggling about:

stringy, slimy worms... just like my soul.

I am NOT okay. I am disgusting and dirty.

I will not be okay until I flush all this junk food out of my system and go to confession.

Then I will be fine. But only then.

I'm not going to regurgitate this food up.

It could take hours to be okay.

No use filling myself with good stuff

until the gross "foods" are gone.

The energy in the dead arms has nowhere to go.

My brain is unsettled.

It runs in circles.

Of course it runs in circles,

because "I want to be good but I make bad choices."

I bring this on myself.

I'm trapped. My breaths are shallow and shaky.

I try for deep breaths, but the tingling is still there.

It won't go away.

(My tear sockets are in my brain and throat, not my eyes.)

I need to be flushed out:

physically and spiritually.

I need to be flushed clean.

But don't pity me.

This is all my fault.

I chose this.

I brought this on myself,

because I am dirty.