当一天数字难民是种什么样的体验？
Digitally displaced
Want to get a taste of what it means to be a refugee? Just forget your smartphone password
The idea of living life as a refugee seems distant for many, especially if you are blessed to live in a peaceful region untouched by war or natural disaster. Yet, as the two parallel universes—one physical, the other digital—increasingly merge, you can be a refugee in a less conventional sense: digital refugee.
Just as a refugee in the traditional sense is a person who has been forced to leave their native land in order to escape war, persecution, or natural disaster, a digital refugee is someone long accustomed to and reliant on digital gadgets and services who, all of a sudden, is deprived of his privileges and forced to exit his digital territory. The former suffers from physical displacement, the latter digital banishment. So you don't have to be a Syrian, Rohingya, or Kurd to experience the wrecked life of a refugee. In both cases, it could happen at short notice.
Last week I became digitally displaced as I failed to fulfill one of my digital duties: remembering and safeguarding my iPhone password. That was when I was ridiculed, punished, and ostracized from my iPhoneland. Remorseful and self-loathing, I still could not believe I forgot the six-digital password, and worse, I failed ten attempts (the maximum allowed for access before automatic shutdown). Thus began my one day life as a digitally displaced refugee.
There I was, on a shabby boat bobbing on the choppy sea, looking back to all that I had left behind in iPhoneland: the well-tended garden of apps, grouped according to category and frequency; carefully curated podcasts and playlists; audiobooks that took ages to download; and most importantly, automatically generated passwords.
Everything would have been alright had I backed up the data on my phone. I could simply erase all the data and reset the phone. Haplessly, no. The last time I did data backup was two years ago, which means by forgetting my password, I have lost the majority of two years' worth of digital footprints. That amounts to a sizeable chunk of myself—my relationships, my memories, and my identity.
At the moment of anguish, I shifted my focus to the things that I did have. The love of my life is still with me, understanding and tolerating my mishap (which I would just call stupidity). Some memories remain alive, though some photos could no longer be resurrected. I could still download the apps that got wiped out. It is not the end of the world.
When a refugee lands on new soil, he leaves behind the misfortunes and begins afresh to rebuild his life from scratch. The experience of refugees is the enhanced version of human evolution. We adapt to radically changing circumstances, seek sanctuary in safer and more promising lands, and hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. People are vulnerable, but they are wired to be resilient. Life goes on. That which does not kill us makes us stronger.
After resetting my phone, I, too, began to reclaim my digital identity. As I was redownloading apps, I came to the realization that many apps are not as important as I previously thought. I could do without lots of apps; only a few are essential. It is moments like this that make us reexamine what truly matters in life.
On the flip side, however, smartphones have become an inseparable part of ourselves. People are surprisingly digitally reliant and alarmingly vulnerable. While spending one day as a digital refugee can be beneficial in the sense that it offers a unique opportunity to look at life from an otherwise impossible angle, losing crucial data can sometimes have irrevocably detrimental implications. Better avoid it. In this age of omnipresent digital gadgets, proper precautions can go a long way.
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P.S. Have you ever been digitally paralyzed? Feel free to leave a comment and share your story.
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孟庆伟 Justin
个人微信 ID：justinqmeng
现象级英语联合创始人
《经济学人》11 年研究者
雅思写作 8 分，口语 8 分
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