The Guardian | 30.04.22 | SATURDAY | 29just used a smartphone, easily acquired from a fellow
inmate with a “friendly” relationship with a prison
guard. “Very few were used to direct criminal activity,”
he says. “It’s more that lots of people in jail are quite
young and they use social media to connect with family,
friends and girlfriends.” Even prison, it seems, is no
refuge from phone addiction – but perhaps it shouldn’t
be. With prisoners often moved to facilities miles from
home, and with visitation dramatically curtailed during
the pandemic (as Atkins’ excellent podcast A Bit of a
Stretch details), surely some connection between
prisoners and their loved ones is good for all of us?
Days two and three
On my fi rst phone less morning commute, I confi rm my
suspicion that Snake is less fun than I remembered.
Also, I manage a high score of only 12 on a nearly
30- minute train ride. No smartphone doesn’t just mean
no social media, but also no (online) newspapers, no
podcasts, no audiobooks, no music. For the rest of the
experiment, I resolve to carry a book.
Day four
My fi rst real social outing: I’m with friends who work
in the music/entertainment business, and the pub is
crammed , so we’re sharing a big table with strangers.
For reasons unknown, conversation turns to the
collective noun for a group of horses – is it a pack? A
herd? A fl ock? Realis ing I have no way of fi nding out, my
f r i e n d s k e e p m e i n t h e d a r k a l l e v e n i n g. ( I l o o k t h i s u p o n
Google when I get home – it turns out it’s a “stud” if it’s a
group of males kept for breeding, a “string” if it’s race-
horses, or a “team” or “harras” otherwise. Who knew?)
Back in the pub, I spot the identical twin of my phone
on the table – one of the strangers is using a Nokia 105!
We should fi nd out whose it is and get a picture of us
together , I suggest. A savvier friend thinks this might
be a bad idea. Cheap, small, no wi fi or 3G – my phone is
apparently the perfect burner for the busy drug dealer
on the go. My friend fi rmly dismisses the idea of selfi es.Day fi ve
Texting on an old phone is much harder than I
remembered. The options are manual entry, whereyou hit the number 7 four times for “S” , or the T9
predictive text system , which doesn’t appear to have
been updated since roughly 1999. My friends, with their
modern phones, send me essays. If they’re lucky, they
get a “K” in response.
Worse, I have a work lunch in a fancy-ish restaurant ,
with quite a stern woman on the door. She wants to
know who I am meeting. I can remember his fi rst name,
but nothing more. I go to check my phone calendar
for his full name and ... ah. My request to wander the
dining room looking for him is denied. After multiple
attempts I guess correctly, and am escorted cautiously
to the table, where the staff are surprised to see he did
expect me after all.
I a l s o d i s c o v e r t h a t t h e f r i e n d w h o b o r r o w e d m y b a n k
card last night to buy a round still has it. How do you get
home with no bank card and no phone with which to
order an Uber? I borrow an Oyster card from my boss and
top it up with the fi ver I am lucky enough to be carrying.Day six
For the fi rst time , my phone goes off in the offi ce – it’s the
old Nokia ringtone we know and loathe , but suddenly
feel oddly nostalgic about. This causes quite a stir. I
also explain to my colleagues that because modern
phones store their contacts in their own memory and/
or the cloud, there is absolutely nothing saved on my
Nokia’s sim card, meaning I am doing an honest “ new
phone, who dis ” for every new person to call or text.
Seconds after I fi n i s h t h i s e x p l a n a t i o n , m y p h o n e r i n g s.
I politely answer, to a fi t of giggles from a colleague,
who has just given me my fi rst prank call in at least 20
years. Wonderful.Day seven
The halfway point of the experiment. So far, there have
been some positives – it has given my friends no
s h o r t a g e o f j o y f r o m m o c k i n g m e , a n d h a v i n g n o s m a r t-
phone in my bedroom has markedly improved my sleep ,
a view supported by the work of the Sleep Foundation ,
which suggests taking your phone to bed can suppress
your body’s production of sleep-inducing melatonin.
But that aside, I hate being without my phone. With it,
I can share the interesting or dumb things I see or think
through the day – it connects me to hundreds of people
I know and millions of people I don’t, not to mention a
full sound system and the sum of the world’s knowledge ,
too. Without it, I am stuck trying to explain why a
particular social gaffe was funny to a largely
uninterested cat, hours later. I am not sure why the
l a t t e r i s m o r e a u t h e n t i c t h a n t h e f o r m e r, i f I a m h o n e s t.Day eight
I am in an almost deserted pub with a friend, getting
r e a d y t o t r a v e l t o a b i r t h d a y p a r t y. W h e n m y N o k i a r i n g -
tone sounds, it is conspicuously loud. The bartender
quickly reassures the room: “Oh yes, sorry, that guy is
using a phone from the 1990s for some reason.” I decide
it’s not worth trying to explain. And there is worse to
come: at the birthday party, my friend Duncan declares
he’s really missed Snake and could he have one go? The
bastard immediately sets a new high score of 89.Day nine
Starting to feel as if I’m getting into the rhythm of this,
I head to another friend’s birthday party, near London’s
Wa t e r l o o s t a t i o n. W h e n I g e t t h e r e , I a m p u l l e d u p s h o r t
as I realise I have absolutely zero idea of where the party
is. I haven’t had to worry about directions, or carrying
an A-Z map, for a decade. The spur-of-the-moment
decision by my friends to nip “round the corner” leaves
m e w a n d e r i n g t h e a r e a f o r m o r e t h a n h a l f a n h o u r u n t i l
I bump into someone I know.
It serves as a reminder that life is increasingly
diffi cult for anyone shut out of the smartphone world.
Around 16% of UK adults are in this
position , but this rises dramatically
w i t h a g e : 2 3 % o f a d u l t s a g e d 5 5 - 6 4 h a v eI DISCOVER THE FRIEND
WHO BORROWED MY BANK
CARD LAST NIGHT STILL
HAS IT. HOW DO I GET HOME
WITH NO CARD AND NO
WAY TO ORDER AN UBER?