“So, what do you do?”

“How do you live?”

“I couldn’t possibly survive like that.”

Heh. Heh. Heh. It’s funny, it really is. And it never gets old. Well, maybe a little. The reaction that we get. The questions, they’re great. The quotes above are just some of the things people say when they hear that I do not have a cell phone or internet at home (and neither does the rest of my immediate family).

Now, it shall be noted that I am not Amish, nor do I have any other religious or cultural restrictions that would prevent me from owning a phone. I could buy one myself, if I really wanted it. I just don’t, is all.

“Wow,” you might be thinking, “so life must just be really boring then.”

Uh, no, actually.

“But what do you do?”

That’s the question, huh? Well, the easy answer is everything. But since I don’t spend time on the phone that I don’t have, I can fill my already easy life with an actual life. And this means that I do a whole lot of things, including launching my own small sewing and fashion design business, dancing, learning the fiddle (violin), living on a farm, somehow finding time to write and even having two different jobs. But this column is not about what I do because everyone can do — and probably does — something. Rather, I want to share my life, thoughts and feelings as a teenager without social media or really any smart devices of any kind in what I suppose is the age of said items. The ups and downs of actually being unplugged. The goodness, and the struggles, that come with being the only kid I know living like this.

Human Connection. Actually looking someone in the eye. Speaking directly. All that stuff already seems naturally awkward. And I admit I am not what you’d call a “social butterfly.” But when I talk to people — and this applies to a lot of, but not all, people — I sometimes stop talking, and a long period of awkward silence ensues. Awkward for me, at least, as I’m the one just sitting there, whereas the person on the other end of the conversation is, you guessed it, staring at something on that little plastic box.

Because I have done the research, I understand that many Americans struggle with social interaction. Ironically, the struggle is mainly because of social media and phones themselves. Since I lack these things, I just have to take the struggle differently. Yes, I’m talking about loneliness, the feeling of being alone, even when you are not. The way I take it is being at an outsider’s perspective, and an insider’s. I am affected by social media too, but only because it seems everybody else but me communicates through social media, and they all want to text. Every statement or advertisement no longer just says “call this number,” but “call or text this number.” I can call people. I have a landline. But everyone wants to text. It provides a way to “safely” communicate with someone without real emotion that would be found in a voice, and where you can edit your words before you send them to someone, banishing any reality to your sentence, your “text.” I have also written letters to some friends. Yes, letters.

Anyway, I am familiar with the typical struggle of finding friends in a new place, though for me, without understanding the internet-infected language my peers use nowadays. I came out of the pandemic wondering if people still used toilet paper to wipe themselves! Despite this, I did manage to connect with people eventually (hooray!), but it’s taken me six years since moving here from California. Like everyone else, I couldn’t go out and find people in person during the pandemic. But I also couldn’t talk with others on social media either. Even then, everyone else knew each other from school. At dance class, it was problematic to connect with the other dancers because I didn’t see them anywhere else (me being homeschooled). And in this homeschool climate group that I am so lucky to be a part of, I only knew a few people. Yet, now I can safely say that I am also lucky enough to have entirely the best, nicest, most inclusive and supportive friends I have ever had in my life. No exaggeration there at all. I managed it not by understanding what people said, not by being able to go on the internet all the time, but by getting out into the world (with lots of help from my mother of course) and actually doing things. By starting my life (maybe a little late), I found some of the right people.

“How do you live?” Well, I breathe, I sleep, I have to eat, I have to drink water. You know, the usual stuff. I really do find this question humorous though, and I have definitely been asked it more than once. Although, it worries me that perhaps people have gotten to such a point that they truly couldn’t live without their cell phone. Sometimes it does seem like it could be as much an addiction as alcoholism or drug abuse. I am no expert; I have never really witnessed an addict’s inability to soothe their hunger for whatever it is they have become addicted to. But like I said, I do have some research from past writing projects in my pocket, and I will take the word of my stepfather, who has dealt with people in recovery for quite a long time now.

I have a little story for you about someone who lost their phone, and I was right in the thick of it. It is a bit painful — and funny — to retell, as the person was utterly terrifying in the moment.

This person, our parents, and I were carpooling for dance. So, when they lost their phone, it made sense that they could have left it in my car. Having, umm, feelings for this person, I naturally did the proper thing, and practically tore the car apart and flipped it upside down searching for the phone. All the while, a small part of my mind said, “Well good for them, maybe this will help them see properly … eventually.” It didn’t, and I didn’t find the phone. When I saw them later in the evening and told them the good (cough, I mean bad) news, well, it was like some important light bulb in them went off. All through class, they were just off. Then the end of dance class came and by then they only seemed angry. Their mother was driving us that night. They grabbed all of their things and stomped down the stairs, almost falling in the process. They ignored or refused any offers of help, meaning they were angry with me, too, for some reason. It was all very scary, and there was not much I could do. We couldn’t find the car at first, or their mom. It turned out that their mother and sibling were getting dinner, and right there on the sidewalk, things were said — or rather yelled — that did not need to be said nor yelled. I just stood by, in case it got violent (which it kind of did, but I didn’t do anything about it). At the car, doors were slammed, and it was one tense ride home. Of course, they found their phone the very next day, under the Christmas tree. Funny how human emotions work. Really, though, I experienced that entire situation in a different way. I was there, a part of the event, but I couldn’t do anything. I was still removed enough to only feel like I was watching. It showed me where I was in this society. That, especially being a teenager, I am chest-deep in experiences like this, yet still just a spectator at the same time. Like I have mentioned, things like this truly make me worry for where humanity is headed.

I found a picture in a book of my kindergarten year. It made me wonder, just how long has the world been full of phoners (what we call those who spend their lives on their phones, and little else)? In this 12-year-old picture our teacher was talking to all of us little ones sitting around her, telling us about a play we’re going to perform. Meanwhile, in the background, there is another adult supervisor sitting hunched over their smartphone. I didn’t even know there were iPhones 12 years ago. Yet, I was in kindergarten, and not much of the world had come to my awareness yet (although, my father and I could have a serious discussion about the movies he let/made me watch at a young age). Despite that, I wonder if because humanity spends increasingly so much time on their devices, people will become less and less aware of the world. Not the world on the screens, not the news of another war or of something someone else is doing, but the real world, not this column you are probably even reading on your phone. The world we were all born in, the world we should all die in as well. The world we ignore, yet rely so heavily on. Wow, did I really just flip the entire script and turned this into yet another climate awareness statement? I can’t believe me.

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Jeshua Wikinson is a fashion designer, dancer and writer who lives on Little Big Farm in the hamlet of Sugarbush. His writing has appeared in the Adirondack Daily Enterprise and the 2023 and 2024 “Wild Words Adirondack Teen Writing Anthology,” along with PoemVillage. His designs have been in multiple fashion shows and craft fairs around Saranac Lake and Lake Placid. He is vaguely making his way toward his junior year in high school.