Being phone alone isn’t smart
WHERE do you live? In a city or the countryside? Three bed semi or a mansion? In a family of 10 or just you and the dog?
Home means all kinds of things to all kinds of people. It might be where you live today or where you were born or maybe it’s wherever you lay your hat.
Now a study has identified a new place called home – and it’s our smartphones. Anthropologists from University College London spent more than a year documenting smartphone use in nine countries around the world.
Their conclusion? People felt the same way about their devices as they did about their bricks and mortar. In short, our phones have become the place where we live.
Sounds bonkers, right? But think about it. A phone provides access – much like a front door – to your nearest and dearest. All your friends and family are there courtesy of WhatsApp and email and text (and good old fashioned phone calls of course.)
Phones are our unique space – holding memories thanks to the photos stored there (no need for frames on a mantlepiece), reminders of stuff we need to do (much like the kitchen calendar), and relaxation in terms of video and streaming services. No arguing here about who has the TV remote control.
We can read the papers or a book there, plan what to have for tea, check out what’s happening in our neighbourhood or street
Is it any wonder people are traumatised if they lose their phone or it’s stolen?
For some it must feel as if they’ve been burgled.
And all this is a good thing. It allows for mobility – social as well as actual. It keeps us in touch with the world – a life-saver for many over this last 12 months – and means you can be a grandparent or a friend or a daughter whether you’re in the next room or a continent away.
There are downsides, of course. It’s tough to pretend you’re not ‘at home’ when you’re on a smartphone – no hiding behind the curtains here – so people can have access to you and your life 24/7. And that includes the boss. Never leaving ‘home’ is a risk to both to our mental and physical health and I guess we also have to be careful not to disappear ‘home’ when we’re with people in real life. Researchers called it the ‘death of proximity’. I just call it rude. Because at the end of the day it’s all about human relationships. If the past few months have proved anything it’s that nothing can truly replace real-life human contact. A face-to-face chat, a hug, a laugh – it’s what underpins everything, whether online or not.
Of course there’s no place like home but perhaps our smartphones should be our second residence, not our primary one.
Have you read about the candles which recreate the scent of an office? They’ve been flying off the shelves, courtesy of us home workers missing the whiff of drying printer ink or the afternoon coffee run – but to be truly authentic, I reckon the next perfume on the list should be eau de curry-in-the-microwave or bouquet of bad breath of Tim in accounts.