My name is Stuart Heritage and I am addicted to my phone. My phone is with me constantly. It’s an external brain I use whenever I need to know how to cook something. It’s a torch that lights the way for me at night. I work from it. I read books on it. I control my central heating with it. It’s the thing I use to numb myself when all the horrors of adult life become too much for me. Which is all the time, by the way, judging by the state of Twitter/X these days.
Obviously this isn’t ideal. Rachel de Souza, the children’s commissioner for England, has just told the Commons education select committee that one of the reasons children struggle to obey their parents’ screen time rules is because their parents are too busy on their phones to enforce them. Do you know how I know this? Because my phone flashed up a news alert while I was in the middle of a particularly tricky Candy Crush level.
• We’re mad to give our children smartphones
Still, she has a point. I have occasionally found myself muttering for my children to wait when they excitedly rush up to show me something because I’m busy scrolling through an endless list of houses I’ll never be able to afford on Zoopla. I’m probably not setting the greatest example, in all honesty.
As such, being less dependent on my phone is something I’m constantly trying to achieve. Perhaps you’re the same. There’s only one way to find out: a quiz.
Tell us about your results below in the comments section