I’m an addict. A hopeless, twitching, finger-fumbling slave to my iPhone – and it’s an addiction for which there is no 12-step programme.
My smartphone is the worst thing that has ever happened to my concentration, social skills and creativity, but without it in my hand I feel like an amputee.
At first – like every addiction, I guess – it seemed harmless. All that freedom and 24/7 entertainment! Gone were the dark, Neanderthal days of slow dial-up, waiting for hell to freeze over as the modem tried to connect.
With my iPhone, never again would I be lost abroad. Never again would I need to consult an A-Z in London. I could work anywhere, keep in touch with my children, shop and discover who won Strictly – all at the touch of a button.
Best of all, I was never alone as long as I had my phone. Until, suddenly, I couldn’t bear to be alone without it.
People talk about the perils of social media for the young and vulnerable, with the Government considering banning it for under-16s – but it’s also a minefield for us older and supposedly wiser folk.
My phone has become so much a part of daily life that I recently saw my two-year-old grandson Rory tapping his finger as if scrolling on a large yellow Duplo block, while holding a conversation of gibber and wearing my spare glasses.
From giving up smoking – several times – in my 20s, I knew cold turkey was the only way to go. So, two weeks ago, I decided to swap to a so-called ‘dumb phone’, one that would allow me to make and receive calls, but keep me off Instagram and Facebook.
Having been buried under a rock of mindless internet surfing for so long, I was surprised to find a Siri-enabled search produced several options.
The latest model and most expensive at £250 – but most highly rated for those thinking of doing a digital detox this New Year – is the simple, chic and minimalist Punkt MP02, beloved of hipsters everywhere despite looking like a pocket calculator.
I charged up the phone and on it came with the immediate ability to make and receive calls. However, I wasn’t able to sync any texts from my iPhone or link the phone to my MacBook so I could receive emails. I threw in the metaphorical towel and very nearly threw the darn dumb phone at the wall.
Do I really need the internet? I asked myself. Isn’t this what I’m trying to wean myself off? Isn’t the point of this exercise just to have a phone for absolutely necessary phone calls? Do I need emails on tap? When I’m working I can tell people to call me.
So I gave up, entered my kids’ and partner’s numbers (another long, back-to-1978 tap tap tap process) and went out into the big, wide, webless world equipped with a basic walkie-talkie.
Five days later the only phone call I’d received was from the dentist and the phone had already run out of battery twice.
I knew my biggest time-waster was social media, but gosh, without it the lonely land of the dumb phone is a hard one to live in. Suddenly I had two hours a day back. I seriously thought about taking up knitting to give my hands something to do. That’s how I gave up smoking 20 years ago – by knitting ugly sweaters.
Instead I shoved a book in my handbag. Usually I read on the Kindle app on my phone and haven’t touched a physical book since before lockdown. I even rely on Amazon so I don’t buy the same book twice.
I had forgotten how annoying ‘real’ books are. Hardbacks are heavy. If you fall asleep reading them in bed they hit you on the nose. Should I buy a Kindle? I wondered. But isn’t that just yet another device?
I used to write fiction. I have one published novel and several unfinished, languishing on my laptop, that merely need editing. But thanks to phone-induced ADHD, my brain thinks it has been made redundant and the internet is another lobe I can tap into if I need to know something.
As a result, I no longer have the concentration or will to filter through the prose. I don’t even have the urge to write if I’m honest. It requires focus and I don’t have any.
My mind is a three-year-old on a sugar high. Nevertheless, I add a notepad and a pen to my bag to record all those clever turns of phrase that are going to occur to me now I’m not arguing with strangers on X.
There’s a note function on the Punkt phone too, but it’s easier to jot down my shopping list on paper than to key it all in using the tappity-tap keys. How very analogue, I congratulate myself as I stroll round Waitrose.
All is well till I get to the checkout and realise I have no Apple Pay. This is a proper problem: since going digital, I don’t actually have a clue where my physical debit cards are.
I have to use actual money borrowed from my partner and then, horrors, start using a real purse.
So I’m now carrying my entire life around in a tote bag instead of having it all in a 3×6-inch tablet.
When I encounter a traffic jam on the way home there is no Google Maps to give me an alternative route. Yes, I can print out a map if I need to go somewhere unfamiliar, but as yet the Epson does not predict accidents on the A34. When my grandson does something cute I can’t take his photograph. I can’t do Wordle. My palms begin to itch.
I feel as though I’m in the film Trainspotting, but with social media withdrawal instead of heroin. I mourn the image-centric Instagram and the cute videos of huskies. I want the saved posts for recipes I never cook; and the tips for zips I’ll never sew into dresses I’ll never make.
Why? When did I last need to fold an origami crane or master the art of Japanese gift wrap in an emergency? Instagram has become my proxy life. I’d rather scroll through pictures of house improvements than paint my walls, and look at bulbs instead of plant those I’ve bought.
I naively imagined a dumb phone would be the answer to this obsession – and it did help. I went full dark ops on my Facebook friends for three weeks, but it was agony.
And what I hadn’t realised was that along with the obsessive scrolling, I was also giving up all the fringe benefits of my smartphone. It’s cold and isolated in dumb phone land. Saving my kids’ numbers was a wasted effort.
Everyone under 40 thinks a phone call is a breach of privacy, like joining them in the shower uninvited. They don’t answer calls. They message on the family WhatsApp group – and even that consists mostly of a thumbs-up emoji reply to my messages.
Nobody has even noticed my social media break. My virtual friends – most of them friends-of-friends I have got to know through Facebook – didn’t miss me. Instead I had a few long phone calls with real-life friends but still missed my online community. I’m not sure I can hack life with a dumb phone.
Yes, there are upsides. I haven’t bought a single thing on the internet. I’ve even done my taxes and finally planted my tulip bulbs, but I can’t hack modern life without the New York Times crossword and Uber.
So I’m keeping my iPhone but have deleted all social media and the Google icon.
Otherwise, I still have apps for necessities like bus tickets and parking, which is nigh on impossible otherwise. I have my camera and my banking and my cards in my Apple Wallet. Sorted.
I do allow myself a peek at social media on a prehistoric iPad for ten minutes a day to check on the huskies. But with absolutely no scrolling.
