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.
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