It’s 3rd February 2023. I’m 3 days late.

Back in November of last year, I was on the metro, heading west in Barcelona towards the university district. The train rattled its way along. The tunnel lights fled past. And in the carriage around me, I noticed all the illuminated faces of my fellow passengers. All of us, intently focused on our mobile phone screens.

It was in this moment – in imaging what this carriage might look like, sound like, feel like, if we were all looking at each other instead of into the bottomless profundities of our digital universes – that I decided to give this a test.

To try and free myself, if only for a short while, from the habit of compulsive phone use.

The idea bred a website and a domain name, as so many of my ideas immaturely do. Then the months past and I couldn’t quite decide whether to take this challenge to myself seriously.

Not until now.

Today I challenge myself to a Phone Free February. Without preparation. Without much forethought.

What challenges will I encounter? What frustrations will I confront? Will it be possible? Will the iron-fist of our technocratic society lure me back, kicking and screaming, or perhaps penitent and pleading forgiveness?

This journey I will be sharing. You can subscribe to my Diary of a Phone Free February here.
Or you can join me: for 1 day, 1 week, or the whole damn analogue month.