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Sajjad Razvi

Dr. Rodgers

ENGL102

February 5, 2019

Pen and Paper

Imagine someone having to tell you starting from tomorrow you cannot eat any longer?

You would think they would be joking, that’s how it would feel for me if someone told me that I

cannot use a phone to text, write, call, or interact with anyone. If I would have to go according to

these restrictions than it would be difficult for interacting with others, my work and school life,

and just my personal life.

Firstly, if I had to live with writing with a pen and paper, it would take me much longer

because a simple text can take less than a second compared to sending out mail or postcards

which could take days and even more money to spend on. Also it would generally be very hard

to interact with others because of the timeframe of the message arriving to them if they are not

local and can’t receive the message in time for them to respond. I would have to work on my

writing skills and not make them as vague as I would over texting and social media posts. A

great example for this would be my mother, she grew up in an era where there weren’t much

cellphones that u could use to communicate with people and today she really doesn’t use her

phone for social media or can’t use it properly because she wasn’t expose to it at a young age.

She doesn’t mind doing things old school way.

Secondly, my social circles would be affected slightly, because again the communication

delay would play a big factor on how long it might take to send my message or send anything in

general. I also would need to see my friends in person more often because other than writing
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paper messages to them I would not have any other options and might have to make friends

somewhat closer to communicate with them much quicker. So my social circles would most

likely become smaller and to people closer to me where I can get in contact much faster. Having

to send written messages to my friends could also help me become better at expressing myself

and I will only have one chance to send it out and overtime my expressing will increase and wont

need to send multiple ones, maybe just one paper would do the job and it wouldn’t have to be

sent daily.

My School life would be affected overall in a positive way, that is because in school most

courses always require some written form of an assignment and if I am used to pen and paper

this will help me become a better writer than I am now. Also this will be a positive move for

school as my vocabulary and handwriting will become stronger overtime writing. Work on the

other hand would be very difficult as I have to email my co workers on a daily basis and this

would be a big obstacle because I wouldn’t be able to send them important documents or

information on a daily basis with urgency.

As you can tell I would have to make many changes in my routine and schedule to adjust

to life without any device and strictly paper and pen, yes, it will take some adjusting because I do

believe that anything is possible if there is a will for it and doing this will also keep me away

from drama, which in some cases is a good thing. I would have to work much harder on my

writing skills and explaining my point of view to others in a short but descriptive way. Studies

have actually shown that about 48% of those who spent five or more hours a day on their

phones. . . had thought about suicide (Walton, Alice). This in fact would be healthier than harm

the only hard part would be coming out of a comfort zone to write and communicate with pen

and paper.
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Works Cited

Walton, Alice, G. “Phone Addiction Is Real -- And So Are Its Mental Health Risks.” Forbes.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2017/12/11/phone-addiction-is-real-and-so-are-its-

mental-health-risks/