OUTLAW INLAW
Iasked the 15, soon to be 16-year-old, in the house if he would take the smartphone challenge.
Really it was more forceful than asking. I begged. The challenge is to go without a smartphone for an entire 365 days in order to win $100,000.
My son holds onto his smartphone like Linus in the Peanuts comics cradles his blanket.
I don’t ever see him without it. He falls asleep listening to music on it, then wakes up checking it for messages.
He takes it into the restroom with him and brings it to the table. He walks while looking at it and even watches television with it, switching his eyesight from big screen to little.
It’s making him dim-witted and apathetic or so I thought.
He recently cracked the screen on his phone. It was in his pocket and in the process of putting his tuba away in band hall he laid the instrument on his lap and the force shattered the glass into a web that can’t be seen through.
When we informed him that he wasn’t getting a replacement, he morphed into an innovative and shrewd handyman—a teen-aged MacGyver.
This person, who can’t focus for five minutes when reading a European history textbook, scanned dozens of how-to websites for information on how to fix a cracked iPhone screen for hours on end.
He even took notes on paper.
After that first day, he realized that he couldn’t afford the parts he needed and he didn’t have the right tools to repair the phone.
After that failure, this new industrious and clever teenager had a brainstorm.
He checked the Internet for how to transfer data from one phone to another then he embarked on another journey in search of our old smartphones.
He found them, after scouring the attic that he hates going into for Christmas decorations. The teenager was unstoppable.
He took the SIM card out of his old cracked phone and installed into the replacement phone he found under a shelf in our bedroom.
When he was finally able to text to his friends, he sighed like he was eating for the first time after a two-day fast.
This behavior is why I begged him to take on the challenge.
The contest hosted by Vitaminwater, a Coca-Cola Co. brand, is asking people to give up their smartphone for an entire year.
His first response was no way. After a minute, he said, $100,000 is a lot of money. Then he started looking for loopholes.
He asked, “Can I use someone else’s phone?”
I told him no but the company does provide you a 1996-era phone with no apps.
After a considerable amount of time, he admitted he couldn’t do it and moreover wouldn’t want to because “a year is a long time.”
I thought back to what I wouldn’t have given up for all the money in the world–my Panasonic VHS camcorder.
It was as technically advanced as a person could get in 1988. When I told my son that I was a pretty good videographer back in the day.
He said he couldn’t believe they had electricity back then let alone portable movie cameras.
The $100,000 contest is a mute point now, because my smartson no longer owns a smartphone.
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