Why you should go back to using the classic alarm clock instead of the cell phone

I went back to using the classic alarm clock. A forgotten mechanism in today’s tech world — with your cell phone you can do it all. The device tells you the time, wakes you up, and is not connected to a phone. It is wonderful.

Because? Because before I brought an analog clock into my room, I averaged two hours and 56 minutes of screen time a week, and my phone told me that every Monday, moments after my alarm went off.

And every morning as I tried to tap “snooze” I got a flurry of notifications piled up one after the other like an on-screen solitaire game. My phone warned me that my friends were chatting last night with 34+ Whatsapp messages; there were Instagram alerts and dozens of emails from various accounts.

The notifications filled me with dread and stress for the next day before I even had my breakfast.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but my old analog watch—a compact travel model—was an understated luxury.

Its design would be nothing compared to the latest iPhones, but it served its sole purpose very well; its high-pitched, piercing squeak was effective in waking me up every morning. And besides, I didn’t fill my mind with conversations, bad news, and deadlines before the day started.

change of habits

I switched the alarm clock on the phone about 10 years ago after telling someone what I thought was a funny story about how my alarm clock had once gone off in my suitcase while it was in the trunk of a taxi, forcing us to stop for that we could get it back. The joke caused perplexity. “Do you really use an alarm clock?” I was asked, as if it were a fax.

“Why don’t you use the phone?” I thought. “Why not me?” He probably didn’t even know he could do it at the time.

But I succumbed to peer pressure and got rid of my old watch. And then the luxury of waking up without notifications ended, and the misery of looking at them in the middle of the night when checking the time on my phone began.

As our cell phone usage continues to grow (a 2018 Deloitte report found that US smartphone users check their cell phones 14 billion times a day, up from 9 billion in the same 2016 report), experts in -being say it is having a negative impact on our morning routines.

“When you wake up in the morning, ideally you want to wake up and spend a little time inside your own mind before being bombarded with everything that is going on in the world. Give yourself a chance to adjust to the waking world,” says mental health and wellness expert Lily Silverton. “Historically, we are not used to being taken away from us as much as we are today.”

Before alarms, it was roosters, church bells, knockers (people who were paid to wake you up by knocking on the door or window with a long stick, something that happened until the 1970s in industrial UK) and even our own bladders that us out of bed.

Watchmaker Levi Hutchins of Concord, New Hampshire is believed to have invented one of the first alarm clocks in 1787. Its design only went off once at 4 am, his preferred time to wake up. Little seems to be known about the details of the actual project, but he wrote: “What was difficult was the idea of ​​a clock that could sound an alarm, not the execution of the idea. It was the very simplicity of ringing the bell.”

It was years later, in 1874, that French inventor Antoine Redier became the first person to patent an adjustable mechanical alarm clock. And in 1876, Seth E. Thomas patented a small wind-up mechanical watch in the United States, prompting major American watchmakers to begin manufacturing small alarm clocks. Apparently, German watchmakers soon followed suit, and at the end of the 19th century, the electric alarm clock was invented.

Shopping

Today, alarm clocks have a huge number of designs. From the Panasonic RC-6025 clock radio, immortalized in the 1993 film Groundhog Day, to more retro designs from classic brands like Roberts. A quick search on Etsy reveals new designs in the form of robots, owls or even rabbits.

On the other hand, more modern designs include the incorporation of colored night lights, projectors (to project the time on the ceiling or wall), speakers with USB ports, temperature and humidity control, and even teen test bed shakers.

Last year, the late Virgil Abloh’s Off-White brand teamed up with Braun to release a pair of stylish limited-edition alarm clocks.

In orange and blue, the design is based on the brand’s classic BC02 alarm clock which, with its striking simplicity, was originally conceived by Dieter Rams and Dietrich Lubs in the 1980s. Fashion brand Paul Smith also released its version of the watch in 2020. .

However, all I was looking for was a simple alarm clock, much like my original one. And I bought one at the nearest hardware store for £8.50. The first night I used it, I felt strangely excited about physically closing the settings instead of swiping across the screen. The next morning, in a kind of anticlimax, I woke up before my alarm clock. But he already felt that he had conquered the day, instead of running after it.

According to Silverton, “technology exploits our psychological weaknesses.” And being connected, she noted, is amazing but terrifying at the same time. “It’s about managing that and creating a routine that works for you.”

Which I now think I have. Reintroducing an alarm clock gives me the time, space and separation my phone didn’t. Although my phone is still next to my bed, the difference is that it’s no longer the first thing I look for.

My first expression of the day is no longer cursing over an email and feeling my blood boil, I find myself thinking gently about what I could have for breakfast. It gave me a sense of control and calm.

Strangely, it made me feel younger, I think because the experience feels nostalgic, or maybe because I’m sleeping better. And what can be more luxurious than that?

Source: CNN Brasil

You may also like