If the title of this article, mainly “The BlackBerry Disturbance”, sounds like an episode from The Big Bang Theory, you’re not very far from the truth!
It’s 5:00 PM on a Monday. Not any Monday, the first workday of 2026.
The time for changes to begin.
And for goals to be ruined!
While most of the world is drowning in a sea of Instagram Reels, TikTok transitions and endless notifications, my iPhone goes face down on my desk, which, fortunately for me, is, albeit at home, in a totally different building than my actual house.
If you don’t have that, they invented boxes or drawers, where you can leave it just as effectively.
Next, I pick up a device from another era, a white BlackBerry phone.
Model number is 9790, the Bold variant, in white.
A beauty.
No touch screen, no Instagram, no endless scroll. Just buttons, calls, and the most expensive commodity in 2026 for the next 6 hours of my afternoon.
Silence.
And a great Texas Hold’Em game with unlimited bankroll refills, no credit card or Wi-Fi required, so no money lost, and incredibly realistic gameplay for a phone that’s decades old.
I love it.
In this guide:
Drastic Change Cures Addiction
I remember when my two uncles quit smoking after two decades.
It was a sunny Monday, and although I was 7 or 8, I will always remember that day and the two days that followed.
After smoking at least a pack per day, the two of them suddenly decided to quit on the spot.
No medication, no therapy, no cutting down on the quantity, nothing like that.
Come Monday morning, there’s no more smoking in this house.
It took them three days, three whole days, to get up and start functioning properly again. During those first three days, they stayed in bed, as sick as they’ve ever been, nauseous, achy in every single pore of their bodies, depressed, unable to eat, drink water, go to work or even pee.
Addiction is no joke.
This is exactly why I’ve been smartphoneless after work hours starting the first working Monday of 2026.
I was extremely addicted to the scroll.
Heck, I still am!
Yet the first month of January has been an eye-opener for me.
I was losing tons of precious time on basically nothing. I was looking for fulfilment, entertainment, creativity and connection where there’s none.
You will find none of that on a smartphone’s screen. Or on a BlackBerry!
Professional Changes
As a content creator and marketer, I realised that I couldn’t help my clients stand out if I was constantly distracted by the same ‘noise’ they were trying to cut through.
It’s hard to stand out when you all drink the same juice every day.
We live in a world that is ‘wired’ for anxiety.
If I’m scrolling mindlessly, I’m not thinking strategically for your business.
Those 6 hours of no screens are crucial for the creative process, as boredom is the ultimate motivator of creation.
This is no Instagram inspiration talk.
BlackBerry has no Instagram, fortunately!
This is a proven, unquestionable truth, tested by the ways of science.
And I can feel it!
In a month or so, my creative juices have been tremendous!
I can’t even explain how incredible it is to spend 5 minutes on an idea for the next this-or-that, not 30 minutes to an hour, and asking the AI overlords about it before my “detox”.
I don’t even use AI anymore, as the lack of creativity + the huge hallucinations it produces are just putting me off more than helping me.
And clients feel it too, which is a great sign and a relief for me and my creativity.
Personal Revelations
This has worked well for my personal life.
Especially for that part, if I’m to be 100% honest with you all.
By choosing ‘boredom’ after 5 PM, I discovered something incredible.
My brain started making connections again.
I wasn’t just consuming content; I was engaging with it, learning from it, and creating it.
I started seeing the ‘why’ behind an action, instead of just the ‘what’.
Apart from that, I started doing more.
Reading, writing, watching actual movies on touchable DVDs, going out a ton, basically every single day, even if just for running errands or seeing a friend for 10 minutes for a shawarma.
I love shawarma, and it loves me.
Just had one, made at home, I think I’m a quarter Turkish.
When you have nothing to do, you get bored. And when you’re bored, you inevitably start doing creative things so that your brain doesn’t turn against you.
It’s a vicious cycle you want to go into, and never leave, because the rewards are sublime!
And, unlike the short dopamine hits of Instagram, they are real, palpable, true and long-lasting.
The Big Lesson
So what’s the one thing you can take from this whole ordeal of no social media after 5 PM?
Bottom line is, your brand doesn’t need more ‘noise.’
It doesn’t need to post five times a day just to be ignored by an algorithm.
Your brand, much like my mind, and yours, needs clarity.
It needs a story that people actually remember when they aren’t looking at their phones.
Go out in the wild, make a flyer and put it in someone’s mailbox, try a nice big billboard, do things that nobody else does, and then you can expect any results to pour in.
If you do the same things as everyone else does?
You’ll fail alongside everybody else, logically.
BlackBerry Focus For Content Writing
In 2026, I’m bringing this ‘Blackberry Focus’ to my clients.
I’m done with just writing content.
I don’t just manage social media; I now manage attention.
I can find new and expressive ways for your audience to either grow, if it’s too small, or stay loyal, if they’re all over the place and simply don’t buy from you. Regardless of what it is that you sell. That’s the easy part. The hard part is to make them pay for your effort of a lifetime.
If you’re a small/medium business owner who’s tired of shouting into the void and hearing nothing but the wolves howling as an echo, let’s talk about building an authentic presence that lasts, online and off.
Let’s find your Purple Cow, together!
Shoot me an email, and we’ll take it from there.
