How do you feel about leaving your phone at home

[Bakersdozens]

I leave it at home when I go to work in a high security area and I realise that these journeys are totally different to others. I have no bus app to see when the bus is coming, I just sit and wait. I have no phone games or messages to answer, I am out of touch with the news for hours at a time.

These days are a lot more peaceful, I sort of like it. Sometimes I am bored and twitchy. But mostly it is fine

Increasingly I think that being bored is crucial to human creativity.

I use my phone as a self-soothing mechanism too.

I have to haveine on me for work
Wouldnt want to be without if my car broke down etc.

I sometimes gomout for walks without it, but often listen to music through it sobthus is only occasionally. I do feel uncomfortable if I've left it behind accidentally though.

I like to feel my kids (teens) can reach me in an emergency, so I don't like leaving my phone at home when I go out. I do make a point of leaving it downstairs every night when I go upstairs to bed.

I do similiar, except I leave mine in the car

Phones are forbidden at work....and I love it! Speaking to people who aren't distracted by notifications/beeping/ringing phones is wonderful!

If my family need to reach me they can phone my work switchboard!

Nobody ever has....

Absolutely fine. Some of us remember that we lived happily and safely for decades before mobile phones were even invented. It's excellent that people can't contact me whenever they feel like it.

Absolutely fine to leave my phone alone for days at a time.

I read a book when I'm commuting. Seems to be a rare past time these days.

I'm one of those maddening old boomers who looks around a train carriage or a tube carriage and sees everyone engrossed in their phones and feels sad.

If my husband and I are out together. I will quite often leave mine at home. I worry about being addicted. So I try and leave it if I can. I would do it more. But I listen to audiobooks during the day. So need my phone on me to listen.

Me too. I frequently forget to take a phone with me, and even if it's in my bag, it's a phone.

In case I need to phone someone, or they need me. I don't play games or anything on it, and I'm not entirely sure what an App is.

Obviously it's different if you have young kids or sick relatives who need to be able to contact you but I love the freedom of going out sometimes without a phone, knowing no one can get at you for anything, feels like a luxury

For me, there was a lot of life before mobile phones and WiFi! Somehow, it just worked, and we managed to do the things we do now. I certainly read more books. These days however I feel lost without my phone, even if just popping to the local shop or park to walk dog.

Never. My phone is connected to my child’s diabetic app so it alarms when his blood sugars are low or high.

I also use it to listen to podcasts on my commute to work.

I would happily remove the ability to be contact from my phone while I am out and about, but I would be lost without all the other things I use it for bankcard, music, books etc. I very much like all this being on one device much smaller bag these days

In my commuting days I once looked down a tube carriage and I was the only person with a book. Like you my phone's usually at home.

Also a maddening old boomer.

I always have a book too, and I like looking out the window as well.

Part of the train thing is the desire not to make eye contact, I suspect.

I prefer my kindle to a book.... but that's banned at work too

Couldn't give a monkeys as grew up in a time without mobiles. Used to have to do fieldwork in some pretty spicy areas of the world as a young adult back in the mid-90s.

Phones are a great tool, but It's amazing, for example, how aware you become of looking out for yourself when you are in the arse end of nowhere up in the Karakorams on your own, and will have no way to contact anyone in a position to assist for weeks at a time. Or even when you fly out to New Zealand to meet someone you have never met at 6am at Auckland airport before being whisked off into the middle of nowhere for a few weeks (I think I managed a call back home after 10 days in the field that time).

These days my phone is on silent almost all the time (driving instructor, so good professional reasons...) and if I have a few days off I often realise after a couple of days I've not even looked at it.

I feel sorry for youngsters today who will mostly grow up not learning the self-reliance and resilience that I had to and mobiles contribute a lot to that. It's often true of technical advancements; whilst extraordinarily enabling they can also create debilitating drops in useful skills for all but the most dedicated.

I very regularly lose my phone with the battery flat. Takes me a day or two to find it. I don't really mind.

Well I’ll admit to being pretty addicted to my phone and feeling anxious when I accidentally leave it at home, or it runs out of battery. I’m not proud but there it is.

Is a sea of people engrossed in their phones really any worse than reading books or magazines though?

I never leave the house without my phone and would return home to get it if I did. The one time I did and was already at work before I realised, I found it a very stressful day. I use it all the time to look things up (incl for work; I work in publishing). I also hate the feeling of being out of contact with teenagers and elderly parents.

Books/magazines don't ring/beep to get your attention back though

Nothing more annoying when a conversation stops for a phone 'butting' in!

I always take mine with me but if I’m going for a long walk or visiting somewhere interesting, I often put it on airplane mode & just check in every couple of hours or so.

I take it to work as we are expected to have them to use in an emergency otherwise it’s left at home. It’s permanently on silent anyway. Dh got mugged for his £2.99 umbrella last month, zero chance of either of us taking a phone into town!

Sometimes I'm engrossed in a book, but on tbe kindle app on my phone as I might nit bring my kindle with me. Sometimes I'm organising photos on my phone for the various photo gifts I make through the year. Or I might be reading a news article.

Looking at a mobile phone isn't necessarily any different to reading an actual book etc. I agree that being bored is important sometimes but holding a physical book over something else isn't really about that (and it's heavier).

I never leave home without my phone. I listen to podcasts at work, and I honestly don't think I could get through the day without them. If I forgot my phone or earbuds, I'd have to go home and get them before starting work.