Who needs to carry a device that can run your needs and perhaps run you, asks NICK FREEDMAN. He explains how he does whatever he wants — without a smartphone

FIVE YEARS AGO I wanted to find out if it would be possible to live without a smartphone in 21st-century London. So I ditched mine in favour of a simple old-style Nokia-type phone.

I have to be honest, there was a transition phase: people had to learn that I was contactable only via text (SMS) or call. How mad is that for a 28-year-old Londoner?

I had to learn how to navigate the streets of Hackney without bot assistance and my sister had to learn that it was entirely possible for her brother to phone her at 3am on a Sunday and proceed to treat her as an Uber booking service. (I don’t do this any more…)

Despite this bumpy phase, the experiment ended up teaching me so much more than any Bunsen Burner-based challenge ever did. In fact, it taught me so much I no longer view my phone as an experiment, I see it more as a way of life, a way of life that I truly believe to be more fulfilling the vast majority of the time.

Things are different. I never leave the house without my rucksack — that has become my very own “smart” device. It contains the tools we all depend on to live full, organised and enjoyable lives, the difference being that my smart device contains physical tools as opposed to the little icons on big screens that most people are used to these days.

I have a tool to:

* organise my life (diary);

* capture memories (camera);

* jot down thoughts (notebook);

* communicate with loved ones (cards and stamps);

* understand the world (mini atlas and newspaper);

* share memories (6×4 prints).

Life seems slower now that I am aided by an an ever-increasing appreciation of delayed gratification. And I have improved many skills that I fear are, sadly, being lost to the smartphone: observation, navigation, patience, communication and attention.

Published 110123

* The writer is a project worker at St Stephen’s Church in Canonbury, Islington N1 2DF.

* If you are worried about phone addiction, help is available from private counsellors but not from the NHS — nomophobia, as it is sometimes known, is not recognised as a mental health problem.

* Photographs © [email protected], and for sale for reproduction. Bigger format versions are usually available.

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