“Between You And Me” – Tech Free

Now this would be interesting.

If I reflect on an average day for me, a life without a computer, and therefore without a smartphone or smart watch, would change everything totally. There would be no casually checking the news online when I get up or when making the tea. I’d need a daily newspaper delivered again and I would need to watch TV news channels much more rather than gain notifications.

Work is where it becomes more tricky. If computers simply didn’t exist at all, my job would not exist either. I support an online productivity application/website, so without computers there is no platform, no tickets, no system to support.

But if it was just me without a computer, while everyone else still had one, I could do my job but it would be chaos. All the queries I currently receive and handle by email would have to come by phone. My desk phone would be constantly ringing. I would be taking calls all day and probably making just as many. Without access to online manuals and help, I would need printed user guides to reference, with troubleshooting notes scribbled on post it notes. If I needed help from another team, I’d be picking up the phone rather than firing off a quick email or instant message. There is also no way I could deal with all my current workload without a computer. I would need to work twice as long or I would need another team member assisting.

I would also lose the ability to make direct updates to customer accounts. Any change would likely involve writing up instructions and passing them to someone else to action. The speed and immediacy that I now take for granted would vanish overnight.

Even something as simple as my daily walking and exercise would change. No calorie tracking apps. No automatic step counts. I’d be jotting down estimated miles in a notebook, perhaps trying to calculate calories with rough figures from a book. It would all feel far less precise, more approximate.

In many ways, it would be like stepping back into the 70s or early 80s. Manual systems. Paper trails. Filing cabinets. More physical clutter and slower processes.

Despite many trade offs, no computer could also mean that I felt less constantly “on” and connected. That could be a good thing to escape and cut off from certain work aspects.

It’s amazing how invisible computers have become, until you imagine them gone.