editor’s letter
How many times would you pick up your phone on an average day? Apparently for most of us, the answer is around 150 times, which is equal parts appalling and not at all surprising. For me, an average day would involve being woken up to the alarm on my phone, before checking my email (Mail), social media (Instagram, Snapchat) and all the day’s headlines (Feedly). If it’s a nice day I’ll go for a run (Runkeeper); if it’s cold or wet I might do a yoga session on my living-room floor (Nike+ Training Club). In the car I use the time to be educated (Podcasts) or entertained (Apple Music), and throughout the day I’m likely to need to find my way to an appointment (Maps), remember things for later (Notes), get somewhere (Uber), pay a bill (no plug because no-one loves their bank that much), communicate with people (Messages, Whatsapp) most often using a GIF because I’m too lazy to articulate a complete thought without visual assistance (Popkey, Bitmoji) and check the weather (er, Weather). I might need to post something on Instagram (Squaready, Party Party, Boomerang), buy something (Net-a-porter, ebay), check in with my kids (Facetime) and monitor what they’ve been up to (Musical.ly), work out the exchange rate on that Céline bag (XE), record an interview on a shoot (Voice Record Pro), find the healthiest option at the supermarket (Foodswitch) or – depending on how tired I am – give up and order takeaway (Eatnow).
At some point I’ll go to bed, but in that way we do now, where “going to bed” doesn’t mean to sleep but to watch two episodes of a TV show (Netflix), do 10 minutes of a French lesson (Duolingo), try to relax (Headspace), fail at that and fall deep into a rabbit hole (Pinterest) and, finally, properly attempt to sleep (Pzizz). My phone knows all my passwords (Dashlane), the detailed workings of my menstrual cycle (Eve) and where my keys are (Tile). No wonder I can’t put it down.
But among all this my-phone-myself craziness, the one thing I rarely use it for? Talking. With so many other ways of maintaining a friendship – a comment, a like, an emoji, a rapid-fire group chat – it’s easy to forget the value of a good old-fashioned gabfest. Our “Hello... It’s Me” story on p52 hit me like a sledgehammer, reminding me of all the people in my life I consider myself to love but haven’t spoken to retro-style, in full sentences, for much too long. So if you’re a friend whose voice I haven’t heard for a while and you get a call from me soon, please don’t drop dead from shock (or screen me as I would often be accused of). And let this be a call to action for all of us to tap less, talk more.
If the story inside is about taking our friendships off-screen and going old-school, this month’s “exquisite corpse” (yes, that’s the official art-world term for it, we’ll mostly stick to “mix and match”) cover of Gemma Ward has a similar message – it’s the gamification of the cover, and you don’t need to swipe any way to play. Experiment with the 35 possible variations of Gemma’s look, then pick up your phone (you know you want to) and post your favourite with the hashtag #Ellexgemma. It’s more fun than Crossy Road.