'I'll Never Take WhatsApp For Granted Again'

It’s been 17 years since the first 3310 and Nokia is Re-releasing the Iconic Handset, Raising the Question: Could we now live without our Smartphones? Look’s Lucy tries swapping Instagram for predictive text

- Lucy Devine

You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone.’ I said this to an ex-boyfriend (cringe) when I was 17, two months after he cheated on me, when I was living my best life and he was wallowing in regret. Now I’m eating my words, because last week I cheated too. I downgraded my beloved iPhone for an old-school Nokia. Gulp.

When asked a few weeks ago to swap my smartphone for a Nokia 3310 – the phone of the 90s – for a few days, I didn’t sweat. The Nokia may not have WhatsApp, Instagram or the luxury of maps, but how hard could it be? Er, very. I didn’t think I relied on my iPhone that much (despite my friends, family and boyfriend disagreeing vehemently) but it turns out I do and it wasn’t exactly plain sailing. Unsurprising when it’s recently been revealed that 84 per cent of us admitted to not being able to spend one day without our phone, 94 per cent of Brits would rather give up sex than their mobile and just under half of millennials, if faced with the choice, would rather lose their car. It probably goes without saying that the entire week was a tragic struggle…

MONDAY

Coping level: 7/10 

Morning: I’m calm. Sort of. I reach for my iPhone 11 times in four hours and on the 10th occasion, I worry I’m losing the plot. Unsurprisingly, my contacts haven’t transferred, so I add the essentials. Trying to be like Ed Sheeran (who doesn’t own a phone), I write a Facebook post telling mates to reach me by email. Someone smart comments: ‘Can’t I message you on here?’