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    I spent 72 hours without a phone. It led me to a terrifying realisation


    It happened while I was on a plane to Zagreb. My phone started randomly glitching out. And then it just… died completely. I maniacally jabbed at the screen, which—shockingly—didn’t help. Oh well, I thought, tucking the phone away. Life goes on. But that was before the reality of my situation truly sank in: without a phone, I eventually realised, I’d have no boarding pass, no email access, no banking app, no contacts, no map or Uber app, no way to tell the time. Without my phone, I’d have nothing. And I was hurtling towards another country. About to spend 72 hours in Croatia without a phone.

    The first 12 hours were spent in a state of logistical panic. Luckily I was with a relative who could contact my partner, who was able to hack into my email from Germany (a long story) and locate my boarding pass. So I knew I’d get back okay. And then I borrowed money from various sources. So I knew I’d be fine in that regard. But still, I had no phone, for—did I mention?—72 hours. Which would be the longest I’d gone without that little light-up box for at least a decade. And as anyone who’s lost a phone will know, the sensation was a bit like giving up smoking, in that I had no idea what to do with my hands. I found myself absentmindedly pressing at the blank screen, just to feel something.

    You don’t need me to tell you how long we all spend on our phones, but here’s a rough idea: recent statistics show that people check their phones on average 58 times a day, and spend around four hours 37 minutes scrolling per day (which works out to around one day per week). I feel like there was a point in time—maybe around the early 2010s, just as iPhones became ubiquitous—in which everyone was panicking about smartphone usage. But in recent years, conversations around tech addiction have dampened somewhat. Not because it’s no longer concerning—it is—but because it’s too late. Ten-year-olds have iPhones now. They’re our constant companions. To try and curb smartphone usage on a widespread or genuinely impactful scale would be like banning alcohol: impossible.