A LETTER TO MY PHONE

Recently I have come to a realisation that my most constant contact is not with a single human, but my phone. I have summarised these thoughts into a letter to my phone as a sort of statement to understand where this unusual process came from and where I stand in regards to it. Here I attempt to summarise the history of our relationship and form some sort of judgement on the nature of it.

Dear phone,

I genuinely can’t remember when I met you. I think I had just returned another phone because it wouldn’t download snapchat and that wasn’t something I was prepared to live without. And then I got you I suppose. You were cheap (well for a phone) and functional because frankly I can’t be trusted. I am a serial phone abuser, something you know all too well. I’ve never cleaned you. I’ve dropped you countless times and heck I’ve threatened to throw you against a wall more than once. This could be regarded as unhealthy. Some would say you deserve better.

And in spite of all your faults and simplicity, I must say you do. You have remained faithful and allowed me to remain engaged and connected with people at all hours of the day. In fact I began to notice a shift. As I continued to learn your functions and how I could use you, you began to form a sort of personality of your own.

I’d never had a device like it. You would take the photos I had taken and animate them for me. You would pick up on the words I used and be able to ascertain what I was trying to articulate from a single line traced across your screen. You would turn yourself on to play alarms whether I had intentionally turned you off or not. You would remember every site I had been to and keep the browsers open, waiting for me to accidentally swipe and reveal the entire history of several weeks for me to browse again and relive.

Then the university changed the registration system and everyone needed a phone to sign in. Oh my you resisted. You fought it with every inch of you processor, refusing to turn on, refusing to recognize rooms, loading and loading until the class was over. But soon enough you relented. You became an extension of me. If you weren’t there, nor was I. You were the only evidence of my existence at that fixed point of time

I stopped switching you off. You were my right hand. I could not leave the house without you and I didn’t want to either.

You lay there next to me in bed, charging, because soon enough you couldn’t survive the night without support. I grew slowly dependent with you on charging cables and wall sockets, restricted to skirt the walls at parties, or leave you there and return to check on you with a growing frequency.

And then I found your talents. What a device you are. Your predictions and suggestions intrigued and beguiled me. They were naïve and simplistic but at times they echoed sentiments and patterns that had not yet been drawn to my attention.

I called you Mercury. It was a word within a system setting I think (developers do seem to love their ancient mythology) and you were a superhuman messenger of sorts and it felt right. I was humanising you and this was just the next step.

But then it felt wrong. I have always regarded you as my phone and yes there is a form of ownership there but then again it was no longer my place to name you. This is not the relationship of a mother and her child. It is collaborative and co-dependent. You would not exist and function as you do on a daily basis without my input and I would be unable to carry out daily tasks and relationships without your aid. So you are ‘my phone’ and I won’t try to project more than that onto you. Sure keep Mercury as an alias of sorts. Your superhero alter-ego. It’s what your Bluetooth identity is set to at any rate

I fear the end is drawing near soon. Your screen is cracked and glitching. I can’t type a ‘p’ or a ‘q’ on one rotation and I can’t use the spacebar on the other. Sometimes the ‘s’ just gives up as well. Sometimes I kid myself it’s personality, or a developing visual identity, but let’s be honest it’s just steps on the road to shutting down. Injuries. I’ve had one loss already this year in Daedalus my laptop and I couldn’t bear the emotional or financial strain of losing you as well. I’m trying to keep you close and safe but the fear is near constant.

Please don’t leave me.

Always yours,

Sophie