It’s a cliché to say that Americans are addicted—heck, even enslaved—to our smartphones. That’s why when I picked up Kim Stolz’s newly-released book, Unfriending My Ex: And Other Things I’ll Never Do, I was skeptical. I was skeptical because we’ve heard the same story over and over before—headlines that read “Survey Reveals Disturbing Facts On Americans And Smartphones,” “Americans Are Lost Without Their Smartphones,” and “Americans Addicted To Checking Smartphones, Would ‘Panic’ If They Lost Device” aren’t newsworthy anymore. It’s just an accepted fact that most Americans are addicted to their BlackBerrys and iPhones, so why would a former reality TV star write a book about this non-newsworthy topic, other than being able to call herself a published author? After all, the list of reality-stars turned authors is long. Lauren Conrad has published two young adult novels, L.A. Candy and Sweet Little Lies; Nicole Richie and Paris Hilton both penned books during their stint on The Simple Life; Kendall and Kylie Jenner—the former who once said, “Guys, I’m the worst reader!“—recently published a dystopian sci-fi book, Rebels: City of Indra. The list goes on.
My skepticism lessened as I flipped through the pages of Stolz’s book. Stolz, a former contestant on season 5 of America’s Next Top Model, tells us the ramifications of her growing smartphone and social media addiction. And it’s brutally honest. For example, Stolz, who is gay, admits to stalking her ex-girlfriend. However, instead of typing “Brenda Taylor” in the search bar—the names in the book have been changed to maintain privacy—she unknowingly typed the name on the status update bar so that “Brenda Taylor” was posted for her 1,000-plus friends to see. About ten minutes later, she received a text from her friend, Amy: Kim – wtf are you doing on Facebook? Kim says, “I went into a panic and quickly deleted it…I shared my transparent stalking with at least 400 to 450 friends during the ten minutes it was up before I managed to delete it.”
Before her social media and smart phone addiction, Stolz used to read newspapers from front to back, with her dad on Sunday mornings. Now, she admits to having a hard time getting through articles without thinking about her phone. She hadn’t read a full book in a long time, other than the Twilight trilogy that she covered at MTV. Time spent on social media replaced time spent reading. This started to change, however, when she decided to take on the daunting challenge: one week without Internet and her iPhone.
She writes, “The parameters of the experiment were as follows: no iPhone or use of any other smartphone, no Internet (which meant no Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or any other social media), no AIM, no Gchat or e-mail, and no DVR (I allowed myself television, but no reality shows).”
The only way she could be reached was through a landline phone she bought days leading up to the challenge.
“I felt like Carrie Bradshaw when I checked my messages each evening after coming home,” she writes. “In fact, it turned out that checking my messages was so exhilarating that after my experiment, I decided to keep the landline.”
She calls it a challenge for a reason—it definitely wasn’t easy. In fact, she admits to having searched her roommate’s bedroom for her iPhone. She recalls thinking, “I’ll just check my—oh no, I can’t. Is everyone hanging out right now? Maybe I’m missing something at work. Do I still have friends? I wonder if they’ve posted about me. What if it’s a terrible photo? What if it’s a great photo and I can’t #regram it? I wonder if something fun is going on that I don’t know about.”
So while we’ve heard the same smartphone addiction cliché over and over before, Stolz is one of the first who accurately describes the anxiety, the anguish, and the angst that can take over some millennials’ thoughts when they go without their phones for prolonged periods of time.
But it’s not just millennials who have a tech problem. Baby boomers, writes Stolz, are hooked too. Stolz’s father, a former Wall Street trader, hit a low point when he would “check in” on Fousquare at various bars and restaurants in the Hamptons so that he could become the virtual mayor of these places. Foursquare crowns a person “mayor” of a location once they have visited, or “checked in,” more than anyone else. Some places, like Starbucks, give discounts and other perks to those who have the mayor title. Her determined father became mayor of a Starbucks and, as a result, got free coffee. Oftentimes, he would pull in the parking lot, check in, and leave. He deleted his Foursquare account after a friend witnessed him driving by, checking in, and leaving.
The main benefit of detoxing for a week, Stolz says, is that her relationships improved because she was more engaged and living in the present—not texting while friends talked to her on the phone, not glancing at her phone while at dinner. On her nights out, she would go to dinner and maybe one or two places after that, without having to worry about plans since they had to be made in advance.
The detox came with a price though. “When I spent a week without my smartphone,” she writes, “I missed more than a few job opportunities because I was not readily available.” Most of us do not have the luxury of foregoing our phones for a week, and Stolz concedes this toward the end of the book. So, she recommends practical ways in which we can minimize the nonstop distractions.
She states, “Writing this book didn’t cure me. Far from it; I am still addicted to my phone, social media, reality television, and my DVR. But I have made some changes. I only allow myself to check my social media at work when I run down to grab my lunch or go to the bathroom. I keep my phone in my bag (or pocket) when I have dinners with friends or family. If I have a night at home, I try to spend at least an hour reading or writing before I turn on the television.”
Sure, a substantial part of the book consists of information and statistics that can be found in the news—for example, that 60% of members of Gen Y check their phones compulsively, or that 90% of them check their phones before getting out of bed in the morning. But what makes Unfriending My Ex distinctive and relatable is Stolz’s personal, and brutally honest, touch.
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