The iPhone 6+ Is Not a Flatscreen TV

Who would electively decide to forgo a smartphone small enough to fit in the back pocket of a pair of jeans but large enough not to tamper with one’s vision in the name of a flatscreen television with 4G capabilities?

Where would the owner of this gargantuan device place it when they were without pockets?

Would the escalating rumors about a possible link to varying cancers generated by radiation-emission find themselves directly proportionate to the size of the radiation-containers in question?

Could single-hand-typers submit themselves to a life that required two hands to send a text message?

Could the phone be used as a weapon?

Would it bend?

Who would have the bigger phone: Zack Morris or me?

These are the questions I asked myself before I set out to obtain an iPhone 6+. And then I weighed the purported pros and cons.

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Pro: It won’t get lost

Con: But it might get stolen

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Pro: It might serve as a tremendous conversation starter: “Hey! Is that a 6 or 6+?” “It’s actually the 8.” “You’re so funny. I’d like to elect you Queen of the Americas.” “Why thank you.”

Con: There is no royal monarchy in the United States

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Con: It would not fit in my back pocket

Pro: But I could probably swing wearing a Baby Bjorn to hold it

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Con: Because of its striking size, I might feel uncomfortable having it out in public for too long

Pro: Because of its striking size, I might feel uncomfortable having it out in public for too long

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For as long as I have known myself, I have been considered capable. Yet, here I find that menial tasks — determining whether I need a thick coat or a light coat, whether I’m meant to make a left turn or a right turn in order to get to Chambers Street, or how to help tie a tie around my brother’s neck — are requiring third party assistance from applications that are downloaded into my smart phone and programmed to navigate my capabilities for me.

And it’s not just that. Because the device also functions as a human connector, I am invariably expected to stay in touch. So when my mother calls at 11PM and I don’t pick up because I am sleeping, she assumes that I am a) ignoring her b) too good for her c) dead.

In gaining an iPhone 6+, I didn’t expect or want to stop using my phone as much but I hoped that I might earn control over my habit of maniacally checking it. Because, really, I could figure out how thick my coat should be, or whether a right or left is the appropriate direction in which to turn, and my mom should know the 24 hour rule: I’m still alive until a cop shows up at her doorstep. But maybe because my new phone would be so…grand, I would only use it when I absolutely needed to. Not while I was in the middle of dinner or waiting to meet someone, or walking down the street. What I learned was this:

A big screen = the business of the public domain. Whatever you’re doing is subject to scrutiny. Just last Sunday, I was having my hair washed at a salon and tweeted, “There is no moment that makes me feel so female as a room full of women having their hair washed.” The washer looked down and giggled. “Good one,” she said.

Forgo morning scrolls. If you’re used to reaching for your phone when you first wake up, prepare yourself to break the habit of in-bed entertainment unless you’re willing to use both hands while you lay on your side and lose feeling in the arm carrying your bodyweight. You will notice this when your scroll becomes limp. And once it is limp, you can rest assured that the shooting needles of numbness will perpetuate immobility in that arm. It will get better, yes, but why allow it to get bad in the first place?

The bag thing is not a myth. It really doesn’t fit in many handbags and if you, like me, have chosen to live a life hands-free, there is a 100% chance that you will be presented with the question of whether you must abandon your phone every time you resolve to leave home and a 25% chance that you might actually have to. Which, incidentally, is okay, because as humans, we are made to adapt.

So maybe by the rules of evolution, babies of the future will be born with paws, or 6th fingers on their dominant hands. This could also just be a phase: a technological joke-cum-advance running in tandem with fashion’s 90’s redux. Everyone keeps acknowledging the fact that I look like I’m texting on a computer monitor, which I appreciate, but I ask you to consider this: Zack Morris’ phone couldn’t fit in his evening clutch either.

Photographed handbag by Tonya Hawkes from More is Love