Living Without a Mobile Phone: An Autoethnography
This is an incremental study exploring personal experiences of mobile phone disconnection, with potential relevance to understanding broader societal impacts of communication infrastructure.
The author conducted an autoethnography to assess the impact of living without a mobile phone over two voluntary breaks totaling nine years, identifying four key themes such as social relationships and work, and discussing implications for those involuntarily disconnected.
This paper presents an autoethnography of my experiences living without a mobile phone. What started as an experiment motivated by a personal need to reduce stress, has resulted in two voluntary mobile phone breaks spread over nine years (i.e., 2002-2008 and 2014-2017). Conducting this autoethnography is the means to assess if the lack of having a phone has had any real impact in my life. Based on formative and summative analyses, four meaningful units or themes were identified (i.e., social relationships, everyday work, research career, and location and security), and judged using seven criteria for successful ethnography from existing literature. Furthermore, I discuss factors that allow me to make the choice of not having a mobile phone, as well as the relevance that the lessons gained from not having a mobile phone have on the lives of people who are involuntarily disconnected from communication infrastructures.