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Breaking Your iPhone: The 7 stages of Grief

Many users are always worried about damaging their Apple iPhones, and below will explain the 7 stages of grief of breaking your iPhone. It is a part of everyday life that does happen to us at some point, please have a read of the article below and then please do comment.

1. SHOCK & DENIAL:

The instant that you break your phone leaves you with numbed disbelief. The shock of it provides you with some emotional barriers to help with the feeling of immediate loss as you come to terms with reality. You cannot believe what has happened. Shouts of “clumsy” and “butterfingers” do not help the matter.

2. PAIN & GUILT:

As the initial feeling of shock wears off, the gravity of the situation starts to dawn on you. The unbearable realisation that your shiny phone is now worthless. You’ve only had it a few months on a 24-month contract. It is apparently important at this stage not to bury away your feelings and experience the full extent of the pain. Not that you will need much encouragement. You may now feel that you have not treated your phone as you wish you had — maybe taking that bulky case off was not your best idea. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

3. ANGER & BARGAINING:

The feeling of frustration gives way to unadulterated anger, you may even start to blame those around you for what has happened, whether irrational or not. Cursing those around you for making you check the football score on your phone will not help. Why didn’t they check on their own phones? Because they don’t have unlimited data. How convenient. You should try and avoid blaming others at this point, as your choice of words will be remembered by those around you.

4. “DEPRESSION”, REFLECTION, LONELINESS:

Just when others around you think that you are getting along with your life, you will experience a lengthy period of sadness and reflection. This is perfectly normal and is all part of the grieving process. During your thoughts, you may remember all the good times you had with your phone, all the times that it spared you from boredom playing Angry Birds. You may become isolated as you try to regain the high scores that you once held. But it will be futile — some Canadian kid has already stolen your crown.

5. THE UPWARD TURN:

As you start to live your life without your phone, perhaps spending a vastly increased amount of time on your laptop, you realise that you become a bit calmer about the whole situation. You still don’t like to think back, but you are getting on with things and people are still talking to you. You are still apprehensive about giving out your landline number though.

6. RECONSTRUCTION & WORKING THROUGH:

As you complete your everyday tasks without your phone, such as finding your friends house on a map before attempting to drive there, you find yourself looking to the future, working out how long you have left on your contract and how much a replacement model will cost. Still too much, but at least you have an end goal.

7. ACCEPTANCE & HOPE:

During this last stage of grief you finally learn to accept what has happened. Lots of people drop their phones, and although this does not necessarily make you happy, at least you know you are not alone. Given the complex feeling that have brought you through this process, you may never own another phone without buying a case and you will always remember the financial hardship a second of carelessness cost you.

Eventually, you will get a new phone; its screen may be even bigger and brighter than the last, much like your future.

James Duval is an IT specialist who is addicted to his Xbox. Given the choice, he would rather spend his days roaring around the world on his motorbike seeing the greatest architecture the globe has to offer. He writes for Centeractive about the wonderful world of computer machines and shiny things.

Image above courtesy via Flickr, cheers Andy

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