My name is Steve Curzy, I am a journalist and spend more than a decade that I've been

living without a cell phone.

You heard that right.

Stephen Curzy has been living without a cell phone for about 12 years.

This choice led Stephen to discover a surprising place where he was not alone.

And we will take you there, but first we have to go back to 2009 when Stephen was living

in Cambodia.

I was working for a newspaper there called the Cambodia Daily, and I remember going

to sleep with this old flip phone, checking it through the night, you know, dreading

that call or text might or are saying, you know, Stephen, what the hell is this made

in your article?

And so when I left Cambodia, I just threw the device away.

When I got back to the United States, like I found myself all of a sudden surrounded

by people with smartphones, and I was just a struggling journalist, I didn't want to

pay for all that.

So I was like, I'll just put it off.

This has been like over the last decade in a world where everything has become increasingly

dominated by smartphones.

You know, people are often, they tease me about it, and they're annoyed about it.

It's like, well, you know, text me when you arrive at whatever we're going for a hike

or rock climbing, and I'll let you know where I am.

I have to say, well, I don't have a cell phone, so if we just say a time and a place

...