Okay. 3

And you have your flip-phone. 4

I've got this. 5

Phone-five. Phone-five. 6

(laughing) 7

(beep) 8

(upbeat rock music) Hi, 9

my name is Elana Mugden 10

and I just successfully completed a year 11

without use of any smartphone, tablet, 12

or handheld scrolling technology in order to win $100,000. 13

(cash register bings) 14

If you were to describe this entire experience 15

in one word, what would it be? 16

"Liberating" is the first thing that comes to mind. 17

But I think the more apt description 18

would probably be "empowering." 19

(phone snapping shut) 20

This old flip-phone was all Elana could use 21

for an entire year. 22

That's right, no smartphone allowed. 23

(glass shattering) 24

It was part of a competition put on by Vitamin Water. 25

Tired of missing out on important conversations? 26

With no phone, you'll have no choice 27

but to interact with your loved ones. 28

This was her contest entry 29

that beat out 100,000 people. 30

But with no phone, I can finally 31

spend time with my friends, 32

catch up on all my writing work, 33

and get out and enjoy nature. 34

It wasn't a technology ban, (plinking tictoc music) 35

I was allowed to use a desktop, obviously. 36

When you got the challenge, 37

how hard did you think it was gonna be? 38

I really, uh, didn't think it was going to be that hard. 39

But I can definitively say that, 40

in this one-year experiment without the phone, 41

I feel better. 42

Great. 43

And I feel happier. 44

Would you say you were someone 45

who used your phone as a crutch? 46

Yes, absolutely. 47

It was an enabling device. 48

(upbeat jazz music) 49

Her smart phone was locked up 50

in a little jail cell, with the data plan turned off 51

for the year. (electric beeping music) 52

Without it, she carried around 53

a big bag full of necessities. 54

My dad gifted me his 10-year-old iPod Shuffle. 55

Which still works great. 56

You don't always get lucky because 57

you can't control what comes on next. 58

I didn't have a printer at home 59

so I would, like, Google the instructions, 60

write them down by hand. 61

I have an atlas, an actual honest-to-goodness road atlas. 62

Oh, and the camera. 63

Hi, guys, I'm Elana Mugden. 64

I voluntarily vlogged about my experience. 65

So, of course, I don't have a phone to just record myself. 66

But I do have this old DSL-R camera. 67

And 68

it is not 69

travel friendly. 70

It's this big, bulky bag. 71

Here's the flip-phone. 72

I'm gonna try and add contacts now. 73

Okay, oh (beep). (laughing) 74

Did you see that? 75

I'm trying to, 76

it's just like automatic, what do I do, how do I... 77

It was time consuming, you know? 78

It was not as easy as it would've been 79

had I had the phone to just snap pictures 80

and do social media and upload videos and what-have-you. 81

(air whooshing) 82

What is the most important feature of the smartphone 83

that you miss daily? 84

The maps. 85

I've actually gotten very good at offline navigation. 86

We've got our handy-dandy directions. 87

I printed out two versions of the directions. 88

It was accountability, it was transparency 89

if anyone wants to contest my claim, 90

I invite them to go to the YouTube channel 91

and watch all 52 episodes and see, you know, what happened. 92

It's the last chapter after all, it's the end of an era. 93

You were able to still live your life, 94

Yes. 95

But not be on a smartphone. 96

Correct. 97

What ultimately happened is I curtailed 98

how many people I'm really interacting with 99

on a meaningful level. 100

When the last day came, when the day ended, 101

what was the feeling like for you? 102

Interestingly, I woke up that day and 103

it was just another day. 104

It wasn't really, in my mind, it wasn't really over, 105

really, until I took the lie-detector test. 106

You passed. I passed! 107

I passed. 108

Speed round. 109

(funny gameshow music) 110

I'm gonna ask you a few questions, 111

answer them as quick as possible. 112

On a scale of one to 10, how hard was this challenge? 113

Six. 114

Did you miss people's birthdays? 115

No. 116

What about big announcements from friends? 117

Sometimes. 118

Did you miss any big moments in the news? 119

Yes. 120

How annoyed did you get with the people 121

around you on their phone? 122

Not so much annoyed as, like, terrified. 123

That you would look at their screen. 124

I didn't wanna be involved. 125

Did you miss taking any photos? 126

Yes. 127

How did you change your behavior without your phone? 128

I feel like I improved myself as a person, 129

as a daughter, as a friend. 130

How productive were you? 131

A hundred-thousand percent more productive. 132

Yes! 133

Is everyone mentally better off with or without 134

their smartphones? 135

I would say without. 136

Any regrets? 137

I regret that it took me this long to see 138

how 139

complicit I had been in my own self-destruction. 140

How poetic, how poetic that it is this moment, 141

the last, final vlog, that I discover the true lesson. 142

Because I knew, for a long time I knew, 143

that I was learning to value my time. 144

But in valuing my time, 145

I have learned to more greatly value myself. 146

And now, you said, this is it, 147

I'm not going back to the smartphone ever again. 148

Correct. 149

I'm not. 150

Because I feel like what I gained 151

from being without it is much greater 152

than what I lost not having it. 153

And obviously, I can navigate the world without it. 154

It is a little bit more difficult than one might desire, 155

in 2020. 156

And she's never turning back. 157

(lovely piano music)