Losing my smartphone was like losing my survival system
LAUREN BEEHAN
Do you know how many times you've checked your phone so far today? As an
Irish adult, there's a good chance you'll reach at least 50 times by the
end of the day. If that sounds a lot, let me ask another question: how
many things do you use your phone for each day?
I learned the answer the hard way when my phone went missing, presumed
stolen, on a rainy night on a Dublin street. Suddenly I was adrift, with
no way to contact anyone, no access to my bank account and a mountain of
admin that had dropped on to my plate.
There's no technology we've adopted faster than the smartphone. We went
from users being the minority in 2011 to 94pc of adults under 75 in
Ireland owning one by 2022. The way we use them is ever-evolving as more
and more services sneak on to our screens. Need to pay your rent, sort
your insurance or apply for a job? There's an app for that. Banking,
socialising, work, news, entertainment, shopping, dating, reminders -
they all live on that little slab of glass and plastic.
The last time I lost a phone, in 2007, my initial reaction of panic and
swearing was the same, but all it took to get back on track was one
conversation about reissuing the SIM card. The sum total of consequences
was the cost of a replacement, a handful of lost messages and some
teenage horror at being temporarily confined to the landline.
Losing a phone in 2024, by comparison, is a major security headache.
Although mine was locked, it was in someone else's hands, so I needed to
unlink every online account I own.
Accessing them involved endless loops of suspicious login alerts and
long-forgotten recovery emails. For many, I got stuck on a frustrating
merry-go-round of codes being sent to the very device I was trying to
remove; for others, I needed a customer service line with limited
opening hours.
Replacing the SIM card and blocking the missing handset had to be done
by the same company, but not by the same team or at the same time. It
took three days and as many calls to restore my bank access, preventing
me from paying for anything online.
A decidedly modern complication is the impossibility of contacting
people without sounding like a scammer. "Hi Mum, I've lost my phone,
please help" is one of the most common text scams these days, and my
exact circumstances. Then there are the lost files and irreplaceable
photos, some of which were not properly backed up (lesson learned). The
notes and reminders we set on our phones seem trivial, but their
cumulative absence had me on the back foot for days.
There are far worse things than having your phone stolen, of course, but
it highlighted just how many tasks and services are tied up in my
device. It's easy to dismiss certain generations as glued to their
phones, but we've made it so that you can't get by without them. What
does that mean for people who can't afford to replace a lost phone
immediately? Or those who struggle to use one in the first place?
Even 10 years ago, our phones were not nearly as intertwined with our
everyday lives. When my phone broke during a summer abroad, the cheapest
internet-free flip-phone was enough to last me that trip and most of
2013. Nowadays, that feels unthinkable.
Your phone isn't just a phone: it's a portal and access key to a hundred
other services, from tax certs to concert tickets, work emails to
WhatsApp groups. You can't have a bank account without it; it might even
be your bank card. When you're travelling, it's your bus ticket, your
boarding pass and your bureau de change. It's your sat-nav, your alarm
clock and probably your camera too.
Our relationship with our phones has changed so quickly that we don't
yet know what all the societal repercussions will be. They've become our
greatest daily tool, but almost without noticing, we've allowed all our
eggs to be put in one digital basket.
It may be too late to walk that back, but take it from me: you do need
those back-up plans.
'Your phone is a portal and an access key to a hundred other services'
Irish Independent
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