A few days without a phone - a modern tale of survival

Proof positive that life without a phone is possible – even if it does have its problems.

I'd like to say I'm not a slave to technology, that I don't check my e-mail - both work and personal - with obsessive frequency, and that my phone has not become a permanent fixture about my person.

Alas, this is not the case.

I am unable to go more than half an hour during the day without taking a quick peek at my phone, even though I am well aware it has not buzzed for my attention, and unable to stay away from my inbox even though I know I sent the e-mail that I am impatiently waiting a reply to less than two minutes ago. I have always feared what would become of me if either of these things were out of my reach, which is what, inevitably, came to pass last week.

Arriving at work on Wednesday morning without a care in the world, I sat down at my desk, paper in one hand, coffee in the other, and went to pull out my phone - which was not there. My heart jumping a bit I told myself to calm down. Slurp of coffee. It was all going to be OK. Bigger slurp. Unless, I thought, as a feeling of nausea overcame me, I had left it in the bus on my journey from Dubai. Cue one over-ambitious final slurp and the coughing that swiftly followed.

After calling my phone repeatedly while racking my brain, I eventually located it, in a cafe, in Dubai, after several frantic hours. Blood pressure back to normal, I resolved to pick it up the very next day. Now, as vital as I have always believed my phone to be to my overall wellbeing, I am also, it has to be said, perpetually lazy. When push came to shove, did I really need my phone so much that I would spend three hours waiting for a bus, being on a bus, and then getting a cab all the way back to the cafe which the bus would have driven right by half an hour before, just to pick it up?

No, I thought. I could survive a few days. It would be hard, my conscience warned me sternly, but it was a burden I had decided I was willing to live with. And although there were some tough times, like missing out on key social engagements at my local karaoke place, and getting shouted at by my mother for "not calling back and making her very worried", overall, it was surprisingly nice to be rid of it for a while.

Of course, I say all this now as I gaze at my phone, tied tightly to my handbag with a piece of industrial-strength rope. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.