Six steps to surviving without your smartphone

So you’re on your way to work and the unthinkable has happened. You’ve left your phone at home. Do. Not. Panic. A new theatre show has the solution. Hannah Jane Walker and Chris Thorpe follow their hipster smash ‘The Oh Fuck Moment’ – a tribute to the joys of ballsing up – with ‘I Wish I Was Lonely’, a poetic delve into our obsession with ‘the gods in our pocket.’ Here are their tips on how to cope during this difficult time.

You reach for your phone. It’s not there. Your first impulse is to go straight back to it. But you can’t. Not for hours. Hours that will seem like days. Years. So instead, do one or all of these things:

Phone it
Phone your phone. It will know, somehow, it’s you, calling from an office or a phone box. Leave it a message. Tell it you love it. Tell it to hang on. You are coming back.

Do something proactive
Ask your friends or co-workers obscure trivia questions that they can’t possibly know the answers to. Watch them sadly as they indulge in the Googling that is denied you, today. It won’t be the same, but as a drug replacement therapy, it will get you through the rough patch.
Make yourself a tin foil helmet, complete with blinkers
Wear it during the lunchbreak so that you don’t have to talk to other people. If they ask you a question, trail off mid-sentence and look at your thumbs.

Employ strategies to deal with the panic
To handle the state you and your phone will be in by the time you get home to it, develop a mantra. Mutter it under your breath. ‘I still exist, I still exist, I still exist…’

Manually retweet
If you think a thought, share it. Shout it over office partitions. Pipe up in the team meeting. Tell the next hundred people you pass in the street. They will appreciate it.

Make a solemn promise to your phone to make amends
Take it to the theatre, promise it, this time, you will leave it on. Let its electronic heart interact with the world. Bring it to our show. We know you belong together. You owe it to each other.