I am a self-confessed tech addict

But I won’t give it up for lent


My name is Imogen and I am a phone addict.

Anyone who’s seen Charlie Brooker’s TV Series Black Mirror knows that technology and the damage it can do is nothing new, and if anything it’s just getting worse. That black mirror that stares at me when I’m waiting for a reply to a message or the next episode on Netflix is starting to consume my life.

Sleep is the first issue. The backlight that glares when all the lights are turned off, turns your brain back on. You wake up. The hours pass by. Before you know it, your alarm is going off and you have to function on just a little broken sleep or none at all. Given the state of the Yik Yak feed throughout the night it would appear that St Andrews is full of insomniacs and I’m more than willing to guess we’re not alone and the incapability to leave phones and laptops alone is the cause.

But it’s not just when we should be asleep. Smartphones are great because they let us find information out at anytime, anywhere. So if I should be paying attention to my lecture, and my mind wanders, I can find myself looking for a dress I can’t afford or pointlessly Facebook stalking someone I was at school with or I can see across the room.

My lecture, which should be my priority, very easily sits in the background. All through the day we obsess about everything: checking Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, emails, texts, WhatsApp, Snapchat…we talk to the same person via three different social media channels, while they sit next to us. Waiting outside the lecture halls everyone is glued to their phone, even if they’re chatting with someone else. I plead guilty. I’ve never been chatty on mornings and rather than pushing myself to engage and interact, my phone becomes a comfort blanket, a wall to hide behind.

In the same way, I can use my phone to hide even when it’s not in my hands. I just press play, shove in my headphones and boom, invisible, untouchable. I’ll confess sometimes I don’t even have any music playing I just don’t want to speak to anyone. While it’s a blessing to avoid yet another leaflet about the Bible being shoved in my face or the electricity salesmen harassing me on Market St, it just makes me more anti-social. I end up missing someone I actually would like to see or even accidentally ignoring someone because I’m so wrapped up in my own head.

The worst thing about technology though is the time you waste. I don’t want to know how many hours I wasted getting stupidly high scores on 2048. I dread to think how many videos of epic fails and adorable puppies I have watched even within the last month. It can take me nearly and hour to get up and do something because I can’t stop refreshing feeds or watching suggested videos. I waste time and then I pay for it in stress. Even when using technology, other technology distracts me. I could be watching a film but I’ll spend half my time also on my phone reading/watching/messaging/Instagram stalking something else. Yes I’m the ultimate multitasker, but that lack of focus is the quickest way to miss out on things that are important.

Back when phones only called and texted, back when they only took grainy photographs or stored a handful of songs, back when Snake and Space Invaders were the only games available, back then it was both better and worse. Perhaps everything has moved so quickly that we haven’t been able to get used to it yet, so it’s about time I adapted. But I’m not going so far as to give up my phone for Lent…