I am expecting this article to be the most cathartic (for me) and most polarizing (for you) one I have penned to date. Hello, my name is Josh and I am addicted to my mobile phone. I spent my professional career bringing innovation to the field using mobile computers and phones. I have designed and delivered data solutions to deployed operations across the globe. These innovations provided the resources that I needed to renovate a historic building and start a cigar lounge. So how, on God’s green Earth, can I pen an article that we should all consider a “No Cell Zone” in our collective brick-and-mortar locations? It’s difficult, but necessary.
I have spent the past year on a personal journey to curtail my use of a mobile device. I have set limits on the number of hours each day I can use my iPhone.
I have made my master bedroom a mobile free zone for myself. I leave my phone in the car when going out to dinner. I try to leave my phone off when I am in my lounge. I fail more often than I succeed. We live in a world where our mobile devices are an essential part of our everyday. Let me repeat that … our mobile devices are an essential part of our everyday. We cannot function without a mobile device. I would offer that if we are committed to relationships as the core of our retail business, we are hurting that effort in our slave-like obsession with our mobile devices. Some practical observations as the industry tells us we check our phones 262 times a day:
‘Phubbing’
Pop culture has coined this term for when we ignore someone to look at our phone. We have all done it, and it has happened to us. This addiction steals from ordinary moments of connection just as much as it distracts from special memories. The story someone told in the lounge, or the chance to dig a little deeper into conversation; you miss out on all of these when you choose the glare of a phone.
Love Languages Lost
The five love languages: touch, quality time, gifts, acts of service and words of affirmation. These are essential and a valid need in all relationships. When we are addicted to our phone, we forfeit the opportunity to express these languages to one another. I have had so many occasions in my lounge where I am facing a room full of folks looking at their screens and longing for an opening to ask a question, share a smile or shake a hand.
Promoting Anxiety
Mobile devices provide constant information, notifications and distractions. With this comes a sense of overload … aka stress. Content providers depend on this. There must be constant anxiety and distraction to keep you engaged in the scroll, the thread, the post or the podcast. We convey value to our customers through the way we communicate and the way we view ourselves in this world. Director Steven Spielberg describes it this way: “Technology can be our best friend and technology can also be the biggest party pooper of our lives. It interrupts our own story, interrupts our ability to have a thought or a daydream, to imagine something wonderful, because we’re too busy bridging the walk from the cafeteria back to the office on the cell phone.”
I think this preying on anxiety through constant distraction is what requires looking at removing the device to increase relational health in our retail shops. We will never win the battle if we try to compete with it. We have all the resources required to be relational, engaging, loving and considerate with a mobile device in our hand.
“You don’t need the iPhone: you have the most exquisite apparatus in the known universe sitting right in your head —the most complex organization of matter in the entire universe,” said educator Jon Kabat-Zinn. “And here are we, feeling a little depressed, feeling like we’re not getting where we need to be, when really you might be exactly where you need to be.”
So, what are some simple things we can do to get better? I have asked myself this question for a year. A “No Cell Zone” is just not practical. Here are two recommendations for myself:
1. Lead by Example: I am choosing to NOT bring my iPhone into my lounge. I can’t control others, but I can set the tone. I ask my employees to be off their phones when working. There are exceptions to this as it relates to our normal course of business, but we choose to make being off our devices the priority.
2. Engage in Actual Conversation: This is crucial. It really sets the tone if I am leading the conversation in my shop. If I am sharing funny memes via text, scrolling through endless IG pictures, and catching up on Facebook posts…I am losing the battle for real intimacy with my customers.
My name is Josh and I am addicted to my mobile phone. However, I am trying to be better.
– Photo by Paul Hoenhorst. Contributed by Josh Evarts, Vault Cigar Lounge in Meridian, Idaho.
This story first appeared in PCA The Magazine, Volume 4, 2023. To receive a copy of this magazine you must be a current member of PCA. Join or renew today at premiumcigars.org/membership.