I don't know about you but I used to be so fed up with people who kept saying that
my generation wouldn't survive without our phones - in a "we used to write letters to our friends and it was so awesome and you'll never know how it is" kind of way. Not only does it make them sound incredibly stuck-up but it was also a completely untrue generalisation.
I've never been a person who saw much value in my phone and to be honest before I got a smartphone I barely used my mobile at all. I wasn't constantly texting someone or getting tons of calls, I was too cheap for that! So whenever someone would proclaim their love for their phone, I would think they were simply daft.
Then I got an iPhone. I was naively unaware of what the phone which tweets, emails, googles, facebooks and whatever tickles your fancy would do to me - the full effect of which only came crashing on me a few days ago when I took the tube.
It was Tuesday afternoon and I had just finished a long and rather depressing day at school and I needed a pick-me-up. So sushi it was! Getting on at Holloway road it was a 7 stop journey to Piccadilly Circus (which has this small sushi place I like), fine no big deal.
Having become the overground snob as I am, taking the tube is a receptionless nightmare - a unbearable receptionless nightmare if you've forgot to bring your book and haven't been able to snatch someone's Evening Standard.
After four minutes of reading the menopause ads, memorising people's shoes and identifying tourists, I was scratching my jeans, shaking my leg and wanted to scream out loud due to boredom. "How do you people do this?!"
It was a terrifying experience for two reasons, one: I was actually about to go crazy due to boredom and two: it made me realise how dependent I've become on my phone.
I'd become so used to being able to multi-task and being stimulated with silly Twitter trending topics, the latest news updates from my 37 news apps or funny direct messages, that when I just had to sit on the tube and do nothing for 20 minutes (with a working iPod btw) it was one of the most difficult things to do.
Thinking back, it was the fact that I could do all of that if I just was above ground that did me in. Because the fact that you know you have the ability and freedom to do something but just not at the moment, make you want it all the more whereas it's easier to disregard such a desire when you know you can't do ir regardless of the situation (unless you actually go and buy a smartphone).
However I still don't believe that we "couldn't survive without our phones", we have just become so used to be constantly being stimulated that we automatically turn to our phones when there's nothing to do.
We just have to work on that don't we?
