In a world where many of us are glued to our
smartphones, Dulcie Cowling is something of an anomaly — she
has ditched hers. The 36-year-old decided at the end of last year
that getting rid of her handset would improve her mental health.
So, over Christmas she told her family and friends that she was
switching to an old Nokia phone that could only make and
receive calls and text messages.
She recalls that one of the pivotal moments that led to her
decision was a day at the park with her two boys, aged six and
three: “I was on my mobile at a playground with the kids and I
looked up and every single parent — there was up to 20 — were
looking at their phones, just scrolling away,” she says.
“I thought ‘when did this happen?’. Everyone is missing
out on real life. I don’t think you get to your death bed and think
you should have spent more time on Twitter, or reading articles
online.”
Ms Cowling, who is a creative director at London-based
advertising agency Hell Yeah!, adds that the idea to abandon her
smartphone had built up during the covid-19 lockdowns.
“I thought about how much of my life is spent looking at
the phone and what else could I do. Being constantly connected
to lots of services creates a lot of distractions, and is a lot for the
brain to process.”
She plans to use the time gained from quitting her
smartphone to read and sleep more.
About nine out of 10 people in the UK now own a
smartphone, a figure broadly replicated across the developed
world. And we are glued to them — one recent study found that
the average person spends 4.8 hours a day on their handset.
Yet for a small, but growing number of people, enough is
enough.
Alex Dunedin binned his smartphone two years ago.
“Culturally we have become addicted to these tools,” says the
educational researcher and technology expert. “They are blunting
cognition and impeding productivity.”
He has become happier and more productive since he
stopped using a smartphone, he says.
Mr Dunedin doesn’t even have an old-fashioned mobile
phone or even a landline anymore. He is instead only
electronically contactable via emails to his home computer.
“It has improved my life,” he says. “My thoughts are freed
up from constantly being cognitively connected to a machine that
I need to feed with energy and money. I think that the danger of
technologies is that they are emptying our lives.”
Yet, while some worry about how much time they spend
on their handset, for millions of others they are a godsend.
“More than ever, access to healthcare, education, social
services and often to our friends and family is digital, and the
smartphone is an essential lifeline for people,” says a
spokesperson for UK mobile network Vodafone.
“We also create resources to help people get the most
from their tech, as well as to stay safe when they’re online —
that’s hugely important.”
Suzanne Bearne. The people deciding to ditch their smartphones.
Internet: <www.bbc.com> (adapted).