Are you addicted to your mobile phone?

The vast majority of addicts share the belief that they are not addicts or that, in any case, their professional psychosis has rational excuses. The "Screen Time" section of my iPhone reports that, over the last month, I have used this device for three hours a day. I have friends who, just as a drunk person systematically ignores the liters of alcohol consumed daily, avoid checking their phone's screen time for fear of seeing the result. In my case, I consult the device more time than I walk or even talk, and my dependence on the screen dangerously rivals reading time or conjugal conversation. I hasten to propose objections: I need the phone for work, the screen is also part of my relationship with texts and, after all, the mobile phone occupies the space that the computer once monopolized. I know these are cheap excuses. 

Aware of the religious guilt generated by our addiction, Mr. Apple himself has designed sufficiently intelligent expiation mechanisms such as "downtime" or the control of the minutes we dedicate to the most popular applications. This inclusion of methadone in the iPhone allows companies to shirk publishing the average hours they have us hooked. We know, thanks to studies by digital consultancies, that so far in 2023, Spanish citizens have spent an average of three hours and forty minutes daily on their phones (among those under eighteen, the figure already exceeds four hours). But beyond the time we live online, the irruption of mobile phones in our lives is much more transcendent due to their nature as an interruption device. Let's be honest: we no longer know how to read, talk, or even watch a movie without attending to the second screen.

Once the illness is accepted, we try to patch it up. In the same way that an active smoker avoids social gatherings to escape the cigarette trap, we avoid the temptation of the screen by turning off our phone at night or forcing it to hibernate for part of the day. For weeks now, for example, yours truly turns off his phone for three hours after eating, coinciding with reading time. After the heroism, I open the phone again with the anguish of a junkie and soon I experience again the unmatched pleasure of the sniff when I see the three hundred and fifty WhatsApp messages I must answer yes or yes and the thousand notifications I missed during the general blackout. Sweating with pleasure, I answer everyone and apologize for the recklessness of having lived untraceable for one hundred and eighty minutes (existing out of coverage for so long implies having suffered a kidnapping, a fatal accident... or being rude).

 I breathe easy. I've been out of the world for a few hours and the exercise has allowed me to remember what it means to read a paragraph without checking Twitter. I am a champion of Spartanism, a titan of counterculture (I have the urge to tweet that thought) and now I can affirm that my dependence is minor. I only drink wine when dining with friends, I smoke occasionally and I can quit whenever I want... etc. But no therapy is complete if it doesn't have a group sense. With the redemptive anxiety of an anthropologist, I propose to my partner a walk without phones, in search of a sandwich. Knowing ourselves protagonists of an extraordinary social experiment, we leave home with childlike joy. But reality is a real bitch and, going down the stairs, we notice the existence of an injured seagull on the house's gallery. We have to photograph it and notify the neighbors of its presence... through the WhatsApp group.

Collons, the phone! Now what do we do? Do we call everyone on the intercom? Do we opt for that very boomer thing of shouting into the gallery so that everyone is on guard against the little animal in question? Cowards and drug addicts as we are, we ignore the problem and decide to pass on everything. We must overcome dependence and choose to leave the house, defenseless without an iPhone. Immediately after, catxislamar, we discover it's Sunday and we don't know if the sandwich shop we've chosen to satisfy our hunger will be open. We instinctively reach for our pocket again, instinctively. Well, to hell with it. We go to the place in question and, if it's closed, we'll improvise. Fortunately, we know the route and don't need the help of Google Maps. What fucking heroes we are! We walk without a guide and, in a journey of just over ten minutes, we spot the light of the establishment. Fortunately, I keep a few euros in cash and I don't need my phone to pay with the Visa app either. Big success!

With the redemptive anxiety of an anthropologist, I propose to my partner a walk without phones, in search of a sandwich. Knowing ourselves to be protagonists of an extraordinary social experiment, we leave the house with childlike joy.

We return home exhausted, unable to share the metadonic experience and ashamed of our mental defect. We are the worst kind of addicts, in short; namely, those who invent any absurd type of performance to forget their condition. But what can we do to remedy it? It's impossible for us to disappear from the world, to leave WhatsApp and Gmail! Must we become hermits? Perhaps all that's left is to admit our powerlessness and our addiction. And share today's La Puñalada on social media, of course. Click, I beg you.