Could you live without a smartphone? | Anastasia Dedyukhina | TEDxWandsworth

Anastasia Dedyukhina ditched her smartphone, together with her senior international career in digital marketing, when she realized how dependent she had become on the gadget. Today she acts as a business mentor, supporting ethical tech startups, and runs Consciously Digital, helping companies and individuals be more productive and less stressed in an age of digital distraction. In her talk, Anastasia will explain why we feel the uncontrollable urge to check our smartphones all the time and share the valuable lessons she learned and the tips that helped her find the balance between her online and offline life.

Having worked for 12+ years in senior digital marketing positions for global media and internet brands, and easily spending 16 hours a day connected and even sleeping with her phone, Anastasia eventually realised she needed to unplug to remain healthy and productive.
Giving up her smartphone was the first step to creating Consciously Digital - a London-based training and coaching company that helps individual and corporate clients be more productive online, so that they can have more time for things that matter.
Anastasia is a frequent speaker at global internet conferences on the topics of ethical tech and digital detox, as well as marketing in the age of digital distraction. She blogs for Huffington Post about digital detox, and is currently finalising her first book on the same subject. Anastasia was born in Russia, lived in six different countries, and has an MBA from SDA Bocconi (Italy) and NYU Stern (USA), and a PhD from Moscow State University.

[popiklena]

I’m getting rid of my iPhone tomorrow. I hope I will never go back to the smart phone. Those things are so addictive, I wasted more time starting in my phone than actually experiencing things in life. I’m also convinced that more and more people will ditch their smartphones in the future.

[sietskevanderlaan]

In 2 days I am switching to a dumbphone. I am a 15 year old girl who has no clue how this is gonna go, but I'll see. All I know is that I have to stop waisting these precious years and life my life. I'd go days with laying in bed and being on my phone, I am done. I'm selling my smartphone and switching to a Nokia which I can call and send messages on. I thought this video was so inspiring

[TheLittleRussian]

I've got a friend who keeps pestering me about my lack of dumbphone. "What if you want to find out what a thing is called? What if you want to find out whether a pub is open around? What if you want to look at a map?" Dude, what if you reach the age of 85 and discover that most of your life has been flushed down the drain of senseless browsing? What if you can't recall what your neighbourhood looked like in your youth because you never looked around? What if your memory is shot to pieces following a lifetime of looking things up instead of remembering? What if you become demented because instead of combating boredom via thinking or engaging in any other mentally stimulating activity you've been browsing Twitter and Instagram? What if you look back and discover that you had no hobby, developed no impressive skills, weren't there for your friends and family, didn't read any improving books (or if you did, you got little from them because you didn't have the attention span to reflect), had hardly a single interesting or original thought? What if you will have lived most of your life vicariously via your friend's social media posts?

[John-vist]

" I just did not want to deal with my own problems. When you don't have anything that distracts you,
then you will have to start dealing with the stuff you have been running away from!" This is a hard true fact. (Escapism)

[mojav]

I've never owned a smartphone. A PC is still pretty amazing to me.

[grahambird]

Ditched my 'Smart Phone' 5 years ago and haven't missed it one bit !

[krijgwat]

I never had a smartphone, never had any (anti)social media and never will. My life is perfectly fine, married, kids, job, friends, the whole nine yards. And no, I am not 96 years old, I'm from 1983.
It shocks me to my very core that this question is worthy of a TED talk.

[HardyGirl]

I've never owned a smart phone. I have a flip phone that my brother made me get for when I travel. When I'm not traveling, it sits on my desk at home. I get criticized by my co-workers about this all the time. They tell me that a cell phone is a necessity. I have to remind them that food, water and shelter are necessities, and if I truly needed a cell phone to survive, I'd be DEAD!

[scottcohen]

I currently have taken a smart phone away for the last 4 weeks... I have had a lot more time to read books. I feel like I have gained more from the books than the many small doses of information that you get on a smart phone. Additionally my focus at work has been very strong. I thought at first my workouts at the gym would suffer without tunes, but what I found was I had better workouts because I am not distracted from checking various apps on my phone while in the gym.

[waterkingdavid]

This is the most sane talk I have heard in months - perhaps years. This is a topic that absolutely has to be addressed. I am surprised that neuroscientists who know directly about what Anastasia is talking about aren't more vocal. Lets join Anastasia's revolution and start occupying ourselves once again instead of being arbitrarily distracted by everything that isn't .
All strength to Anastasia.

[AlecLeigh]

People seem to forget that we lived very easily without a smartphone of any kind until the late 90s. So, why not again?

[dalmamirabal]

Can you live without a smartphone? Is that an actual question? Of course you can. Nobody is as important as they think they are. I have a flip-phone and most of the time I don´t even use that. And no, I am not even on FB... I have a life. And I hate texting.
I remember when you could just turn up at peoples houses without calling ahead and they were happy to see you. Then came the time when we started to call before a visit, to check. Now we text before we call, just to make sure its not inconvenient.
Wonder what the next step is... scheduling texts? And yet, we are expected to be available 24/7.
No, I don´t get it. I´m a dinosaur. I have to own that.
Really good talk. Your device is just a tool.

[EvaEleni]

I'm pretty sure I ruined my phone, and the last couple days I have gone without my phone, and it wasn't even that hard, but it is so liberating!!

[xXcangjieXx]

You weren't able to resist the comment section during her talk, right? Right?

[peterpiper]

I not only live without a smart phone (for the past 14 years) I live without ANY phone. I have only a laptop from which I text and e-mail. That's it. I'm delighted with my set-up for communication. You should try it... for more than a week! If a physician can go without a phone, you can too.

[yogipray]

Because of this I changed the way I use my phone. I was so addicted to my phone. It was like tied to my wrist. Thank You.

[someoneelse]

I really think her tone and pace throughout the talk reflects her message nicely.

[richardherberthenkle]

4 years ago when I fully retired at 48 years old, I got rid of the 3 phones I had been using. A company kept me on the line all day whenever they wanted, on my days off as well. I have NO cellphone at all now. I use a home phone, old technology, and my computer to write with people or have videocalls with relatives. My life is much better. I see smartphone addictions in people every day. I hear firsthand of divorces due to smartphone addiction. In these past 4 years I walked out on at least 1 woman due to her phone addictions. Now I am married and ask my new wife not to become addicted to her phone, instagram, and so forth. Don`t put up with it.

[perry]

Yeah... my phone died while I was at the police station waiting to identify a suspect the other day and I actually started going through old memories in detail - was surprised how much joy that brought me.

[charlesbugeja]

I am 69 years old and have never owned one, and do not need one.