Look around. Who’s
looking back? Odds are no one is paying any attention to you. They are too busy scrolling through
smartphone messages.
Consider
yourself and your cell phone.
That’s
what vitaminwater wants you to do.
Could
you give up the use of your smartphone for 365 days? If you couldn’t, you wouldn’t be alone. If this digital addiction were a drug—say,
crack, heroin or meth—there wouldn’t be enough rehabilitation facilities in
America. Coca-Cola Company, parent
company of vitaminwater, has a
contest to see who can go cold turkey for a whole year.
So what
do you have to do to win the $100,000 grand prize?
There’s
plenty of fine print in the rules. The first thing you have to do is lock up
your smartphone and tablets. That’s
right. Scrolling is out. No social media. Forget Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and such. No texts.
No going to Google on your mobile device. And you must agree to a lie-detector test at
the end of the year.
But
before you hyperventilate, relax.
The
contest allows you to use your laptop or desktop computer. And as a pacifier, you will be given an old-school,
screen-less cell phone. A flip-phone
would let you call 911 or ask AAA to come fix your flat tire.
Giving
up your smartphone is a big step toward winning the 100 grand, but there’s
more. I won’t go into all the details,
but there’s some writing you’ll have to submit.
You must sell the contest committee on how you’d be using all that
newfound time by giving up your smartphone.
If your originality, creativity and humor are better than everybody
else’s, you just might be $100,000 richer in early 2020.
For a
few minutes, after reading the article, I imagined the next year without my
smartphone.
I rewound my life’s memories before the internet and
smartphones. Things were pretty
good. I knew where most of the pay
phones were on my four-state circuit. I
never felt out of touch.
About Google, I confess. That cyber wizard is nifty. But then again, I had then—and I have
now—friends who provide Google-like answers to fill in the gaps on my
knowledge. It’s my good fortune to have
plenty of friends much smarter than
me. And they’ve never refused my
inquiries, even if I called from pay phones or a flip-phone.
As you
can see, I was gearing up to enter this contest. Giving up my handy smartphone
wouldn’t be easy, but I have laptop and desktop computers. I rarely use my
iPad. Long ago, I vowed not to get
hooked on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Linkedin and other social-media
platforms. Besides, I’ve read plenty about how these are more likely to make
you sad versus happy. I’m happy to “just
say no” to those temptations.
But as I
read deeper into the vitaminwater competition
requirements, I discovered my less-than-modern attitudes about social media
would deny me a chance of banking the $100,000.
That’s
right.
Entries
must be submitted via Twitter, #NoPhoneforayear, or by Instagram,
#NoPhoneforayear.
Uh-oh.
I don’t do hashtag talk.
But if
you win the prize, I just might see you.
That is,
if I’m not staring at my smartphone.
dnesmith@cninewspapers.com
