My Digital Life in My Hands

My cell phone recently started acting up. It worked sporadically for a while and after trying all the things my carrier said to do, they exchanged the phone. When I opened the box they sent I realized that they had sent me a different phone than the one I had. Upon talking to them I was told that they did not have my old one anymore and had substituted a newer one. So far, everything is ok. I had backed up my data to this cloud thing so it would be automatically returned to me when I set up the new phone. Admittedly, I am not the most tech savvy individual. After a walk-through installation on the new phone it was up and running. Then I realized how different my new phone was. There were all these new functions I did not understand and the menus were completely different. What was most troubling was the fact that none of my data was there! At that very moment I realized my entire life was in my old phone. The pictures and video I had taken were gone. So was the history of all my texts and the phone number of everyone I knew in the world and might ever want to call. My whole life had shrunk down to some microchips and a touch display in my hand. My world stopped turning. How could I find all that data again? I have long since abandoned keeping numbers in my paper phone book. All the funny texts and information I would look up within were gone. The cute pictures of my grand-daughter…history. All the applications I had downloaded and taken for granted were suddenly gone from my memory. I could not even remember my own password for my email. It had been saved in the phone. I imagined just how long it would take to re-enter all of that data if I could even find it all again. It really hit home just how much my life revolved around that phone. It felt like I was being held hostage by my own electronic device. As I sat there staring at the phone I wondered if this had ever happened to anyone else or if I was the single lost soul in the digital world. Then I called the wireless company yet again and explained to three different people what was going on with the phone. They kept saying, “Didn’t everything come back?” If all my data had come back, why would I be calling for help? Finally a fourth person took out their own phone and walked me through the steps to retrieve my data. One minute I only had the numbers for the wireless company. The next minute, my world was restored! Not only numbers came back but the texts, pictures and video. The person even showed me a place where I could see every application that I had ever downloaded to that phone number. The next several hours were spent retrieving that information and learning the new phone. I still do not have it all down yet but the important part is, my data is in hand again. I know there are people much more proficient on their phones who might laugh at me, but it was a horrifying event. There is no way I could imagine a surgeon with someone else’s life in their hands when I came this unglued at the thought of my digital life being over. If anyone else has had a similar event, let me know.