A middle aged woman's addiction to her phone

Or how I struggle to survive without distraction

I can’t remember the last time I sat still without picking up my phone. If I lose it for even a moment I start to panic. I sometimes hold my phone in my sweaty palm, and shout - ‘WHERE IS MY PHONE?’ in a high-pitched voice (I do this in the car if I’m using it for directions and my family laugh in unison). My phone usage has got far worse now the kids are home for the summer holidays. I know I should be making dinosaurs with them out of sourdough or grating cheese to make fresh muffins and I sometimes do this in the minutes when I am not hunched over the tiny tech beast.

I have it plugged into a charger in the kitchen and I swing by every 5 minutes.

‘How’s it going?’ I ask, ‘Fancy a spin?’

‘Thank God you said that. Yes!’ the phone replies.

I pick it up and perform the same sequence

Check IG.

Check FB (very brief).

Check LinkedIn (brief again).

Check WhatsApp.

Back to IG.

Onto Google and pop in ‘embroidered summer dress,’ or alternately ‘embroidered quilted jacket.’

Back to IG for a moment. Feel cross at influencers inordinately expensive free holiday.

Set phone down.

Pick it up immediately as was supposed to be calling mum to check if she’s coming over on Friday to help me wallpaper one wall in the kids room. Google ‘nice kids wallpaper’, and then browse ‘The Daily Fail,’ to see what I can feel outraged by today. I Google ‘cool baseball caps for middle aged women,’ as I’ve been inspired by Jenna Lyons on ‘The Housewives of New York’. I see multiple basketball caps. I also see she is the first character to be gay and on the show. I Google to see who her last partner was. I wonder what it would be like to be married to her and if she could make me look good in a baseball cap.

It’s not healthy. I have read books on the subject. I read a really good one written by Hilda Burke called ‘How to Break Up With Your Phone.’ I interviewed her on one of my not remarkably successful podcasts (the one that one day will blow up and make me very famous but this may be after I die). I know that the whole thing is designed to be addictive but it feels that my desire to be productive, be busy, not stop is particularly lethal. It is also something about ageing and maybe fearing falling behind with life and not staying relevant. It is also something to do with counteracting the brain fog? Or maybe it just stops some of the dark clouds that are constantly hovering on my peripheral vision.

Whilst I write this I am aware that my phone is on the counter downstairs full of things that I need to know about. I know they are not important but nonetheless I must know about them all.

Someone is offering old flip flops on the street WhatsApp. A celebrity hawking an anti-ageing supplement that I need to take tomorrow morning or I will look like Golem by dawn. There will be 500 embroidered tops that will only be on sale for three minutes and then will disappear.

My phone is my best bud when it comes to shopping. If I’m reading an article in an actual physical magazine or newspaper (which is rare), then I use my phone to check Amazon, to see if the book they’ve reviewed is available immediately. I then look at all the other books this goddamn prolific, and thoroughly attractive author has written and feel sick. I notice that the cat is scratching its ear and so needs Frontline so I put that in the basket whilst berating the fact that I haven’t written as many books as this author and (so far) have never had a review in The Guardian. I Google ‘women who are fifty and suddenly become an amazing successful author and look good in baseball caps.’

I then think about swimming costumes (possibly because Amazon has just shown me one that I was looking at earlier) and I need one that hopefully doesn’t make me look like a fucking-jerk-loser-writer so I start browsing. None of the models are my shape. Or my age. They resemble me as much as a Jimmy Chooresembles my neighbours beach-weary, sad-ass, flip flop.

In the park most of the parents are on their phones. If they’re not then they’re thinking about them. Now and then they look up and say ‘meh’ as their kid waves a bucket in their face. I am not judging because I am this parent. I am trying to shoot a video of myself so I can get some likes on IG. Or I am messaging a friend about what wallpaper to put in the kids room. Or I’m looking at the embroidered jackets/dresses/ whatever the fuck is actually embroidered but I want it please.

The answer? Well it’s simple.

Put the phone down.

But on the occasions when I do this I start to feel itchy. Tetchy. Restless. Like I’ve lost something. I find the trees, and the general scenery, and the real life humans too slow moving. They don’t have their prices underneath their visuals, and I can’t buy them. There is too much mess. Ten reusable cups fall on my head whenever I open a cupboard. This is real life and it’s not fun.

I have just finished reading Louise Hay’s classic book on positive affirmations for health, and I try to say ‘I approve of myself,’ at least 50 times a day. The problem is that I can never remember the exact affirmation and keep thinking that it’s ‘I abhor myself,’ and so then I have to Google the phrase, because this is the other thing with the phone. Questions must be answered and can’t be left hanging in the air. Who was the singer in Alice in Chains? Is he alive? Who was he married to? Who is Queen Latifah married to? Wikipedia. Then back onto my Spotify playlist to pop that classic song I loved so much onto my running playlist. But hang on, that’s not the one, I must text my friend so I can remember what it is, then put it on my playlist.

It’s so satisfying getting these little mini errands completed!

If I’ve had a bad day on my phone then my brain is fizzy. I get my kids names muddled up, and want to swipe up to change their expressions. I stagger a bit when I stand up because I’m arriving from a fast-paced universe that holds all the answers. I pick up the remote to WhatsApp a Mum about a playdate. I am impatient that she doesn’t reply immediately. Where are those embroidered tops? The things I need right this minute. Where are the desirable distractions?

At night I dream that I am floating in the sky, carrying armloads of junk, I am light as a feather but one eye is twitching. It’s unnerving this twitching. There is an arc of tiny yellow stars that trail behind me. I am magical because I know everything that is happening all the time. I also cry a little because I’ve wasted so much time.

I offer up all the things, and I say to the world - ‘I approve of myself,’ and then finally I disappear.