COULD YOU GO PHONE-FREE?

Over 55 million Brits own a smartphone – but does this handheld tech help or hinder our lives? Writer Su Karney, 41, gave hers up for a week to find out

- SU KARNEY

Ding! Ping! Beep! That’s pretty much the soundtrack to my life, played on iPhone.

And I’m not alone – 84% of the UK’s adult population owns a smartphone, spending an average of two hours and 34 minutes on them every single day.

My last screen-time notification came in at a whopping three hours and 37 minutes per day. That’s nearly a fifth of my waking hours.

My mobile lives in my back pocket (it’s ended up down the loo more than once!) and I break out in a sweat if I forget to take it on the school run. My phone’s my alarm clock, weather forecast, news, virtual shopping mall and camera!

So could I manage without it? For, let’s say, a whole week?

In order to do this properly, I’ll have to set some ground rules. No using the iPad as a substitute, and my laptop is for my work as a writer only. No peeking at Insta, or using my husband’s phone, either.

I say farewell to my nearest and dearest on WhatsApp. ‘You can reach me by landline and courier pigeon,’ I write.

And with that, I take a deep breath, and switch my iPhone 11 off for, probably, the first time ever…

MONDAY

The old-school alarm clock wakes me. Usually, the first thing I do is check the notifications on my phone: Gmail, WhatsApp, Apple News, Twitter, Instagram…

I head to the shower. It’s eerily quiet without the radio on my mobile. I wonder what today’s headlines are? What work emails await?

‘You’re on ParentMail duty this week,’ I remind my husband Kevin, 41, lest we miss a message on the school app about our sons Reuben, five, and Ethan, four.