Mobile phones

Q: How often do you use your phone? A: Far too often, if I'm honest with myself — it's the first thing I look at in the morning, which I know is a slightly embarrassing admission. I've tried leaving it in another room while I work, and it genuinely helps, but I don't keep that up consistently enough for it to count as a habit. Q: What do you use it for most? A: Messaging, mostly, and reading things — news, articles, whatever I've saved and forgotten about. Actual calls are almost an afterthought at this point; I think I go days without making one. It's become less of a phone and more of a small computer that occasionally also makes calls. Q: Could you live without it for a week? A: The first two or three days would be genuinely uncomfortable, I think, mostly out of habit rather than real need. After that I suspect I'd adjust fairly quickly and probably enjoy it — there's something appealing about not being reachable, even if the idea of it is more appealing than the reality would be. Q: Do you think people use phones too much? A: Yes, broadly, though I include myself in that rather than pointing at other people. It's less that the phone itself is the problem and more that it's designed to be hard to put down — everything about it is built to pull you back in. I try to push back against that, with mixed success.