Easy for stars to go phone-free

SIMON Cowell was probably expecting more kudos for giving up his smartphone for the best part of a year, but unfortunately he’s been lambasted as just another ‘Irritating Man Without A Phone’ preaching to the rest of us about the benefits of going offline.

Cowell was evangelical in his praise for the phone-free life, but commentators were quick to point out that the star presumably has a team of PAs to look after his diary and keep abreast of whatever’s going on on social media, so he’s privileged to be able to switch off himself.

This side of the water, our own Ryan Tubridy has been regaling listeners to his radio show with his phone-free exploits.

Far from Tubridy coming over as irritating, I’ve found his adventures fascinating and his experiment appears to stem from a genuine concern about the impact of tech addiction on our day-to-day lives. But again, while Tubs is steering clear of social media for the most part, no doubt he has a team around him who can keep him abreast of events online.

For more ordinary mortals, being connected is frequently crucial for our jobs, so going off-grid probably isn’t an option

– at least not during the working week.

Having said all that, we’ve heard quite a lot lately from Silicon Valley types who’ve already made their millions as internet pioneers who are now busy telling us unhelpfully that phones are ruining our lives and that we need to deal quickly with our addiction to tech.

Well, thanks guys, we know we do. But seeing as they’re the ones who got us into this mess in the first place, what are they going to do to get us back out?