My first year of college at the University of Alabama in 1994, before I transferred to my alma mater Randolph-Macon, I studied Mass Communications. There were three branches: TV, radio, and print. In TV, there were three major networks: ABC, CBS, and NBC. In radio, two frequencies: AM and FM. In print, there were various newspapers and magazines. It was manageable to consume and manageable to learn.

In 2007, the same year I started my marketing firm, the iPhone hit the market. I wrote my first blog about my prediction that this product would have us retreat into isolation, into our own worlds with our own shows and music. I also concluded that while it could be good for marketing and advertising, it seemed like a bad idea for the human psyche that thrives on connection and community.

While social media had been around for some years, in 2007 it became mainstream. The whole affair was cloaked in marketing that assured choice. Got a problem? There’s an app for that. Have an opinion? There’s a platform for that. Yet I distinctly remember the overwhelm I felt. How would I manage it all?

Overnight clients asked me to produce more than three times the content I had been developing for them. I hired a social media marketing specialist and began training teams in social media management, another layer to our already complex agency jobs delivering Google ads, SEO and such. The Silicon Valley giants grew faster and bigger than us agency owners, and we all feel a bit diminished and overwrought trying to keep up.

Last week, I read an article in the WSJ about executives embracing dumbphones. What if that could be not just a luxury, but an alternative way of life?

My teenage daughter recently asked me what life was like when I was her age. I told her about my childhood in Virginia building backyard forts in the woods. We built treehouses, underground bunkers and even a shanty with a shed and a well. I told her we bicycled to the neighborhood pool, watched the boys do tricks on the ramp they built in the parking lot and played games in and out of the water until the crickets signaled it was time for us to go home for dinner. I told her about sledding on the area hills, each of us one-upping each other’s rides on toboggins, sleighs and trash can lids, and trying not to fall into the chilly creek at the bottom of the run.

“It was so freaking fun,” I told her.

She marveled at my stories and then asked, “What made it so different?”

I picked up my phone. “No one had one of these in their pocket,” I said.

She paused.

“It sounds like it was really… relaxing.”

“It was.”

This holiday season, I wish you more time in the fresh, cold air. I wish you more memories made in person with friends and loved ones. I wish for your involvement in live community events that connect you with the people in your town or city. (They need you.) I wish you fewer ads, fewer apps, and less platforms. Take it easy, and we can always begin again next year.

Since 2007, Big Buzz® has helped Stage II to Stage III organizations systemize marketing to achieve growth goals. Founder and CEO Wendy O’Donovan Phillips is the author of two books available on Amazon, Kaboom and Flourish, multiple data-driven eBooks, has been published in McKnight’s, in Forbes, and has been quoted in The Washington Post, ABC News, and Chicago Tribune. She has lectured for the American Dental Association, Argentum, several chapters of LeadingAge, and dozens of other organizations in front of audiences ranging in size from 25 to 3,000. She has been honored by the American Marketing Association for excellence in her field and has been named a Gold Key Award Winner by the Business Marketing Association. In her two-decades-long career, she has consulted with hundreds of organizations globally to support improved marketing clarity, strategies and outcomes. Get details: visit www.bigbuzzinc.com and follow Wendy.