So, I finally capitulated and bought a new phone, a Samsung A54, with my Samsung S7 (big up 2016!) finally calling it quits after eight years. It’s been a trooper, one my best ever value for money purchases, to the point that I’m oddly proud of it, similar to how a parent would insufferably brag about one of their kids getting an A on their exam.

But like a bratty hormonal teen, my S7 had been behaving erratically for months and driving me round the bend. Its biggest problem – the contacts in the USB connector no longer allowed it to recharge by just plugging in the charging cable. I was having to spend ten minutes at a time fiddling with the cable, to get it set at just the right angle and torque to charge. Even if I managed that the ordeal wasn’t over, oh no, I was creeping around it like a burglar. It was so sensitive that even the tremors of walking near it might disconnect the charge. For a technological device this is the equivalent of an animal’s teeth going and it dying of starvation as a result.

This faff placed me vis-à-vis with a frustrating habit for putting off spending until a point of unbearable inconvenience or necessity is reached. Despite being in my forties and entirely self-reliant and relatively well-healed (from, you guessed it, not spending any money), I’m still paralysed by an illogical fear of wasting money, and this motivation outweighs any materialistic or practical benefit I will receive from spending it well. Will this ever change? Am I getting worse? Will I end up being your passé seventy-five-year-old with a house full of stuff that’s either laughably obsolete or broken, all because I stubbornly forgot to value time over money?

My heart sank after spending £375 on the new Samsung phone, SD card and Spigen case protector, so I’d say that the dispiriting fate described above may await me. Even the liberation of not having to baby the Samsung S7 to charge every night, as though it’s a toddler with ADHD that’s had too much sugar, doesn’t feel like ample justification. Technology, in particular, when it comes to spending cash, is problematic for me – it advances so quickly and drastically depreciates in value. We can’t all be Tory toffs owning multiple flats to rent out, the rest of us have to try and content ourselves saving slowly and our purchases being investments in time saved and quality of life improvements.

Speaking of annoying, there was the two days without a functioning mobile phone. What really jarred me is how reliant I am on its practicality. On foot in an unfamiliar part of town, and think you might be lost? Just open Google Maps or phone a taxi. Can’t be arsed putting any thought into your tea? Just Eat will sort it. Irritated because you can’t remember the name of that bloke in that movie? Just Google it instead of preoccupying yourself for several minutes trying to remember.

The above examples are banal, but make me ponder whether having smartphones is stunting our ability to retain information and affecting our capability for creativity and ingenuity. It’s certainly decreasing our need for face-to-face interactions. Weaning myself off social media entirely has been a huge benefit and reduced my screen time considerably, but others are so strongly tethered, how much time and intellectual energy do we waste on it? Regardless, I couldn’t go back to not having one of these things, none of us can. Now consider how not having a mobile negatively affects the outcomes of the scenarios above. It’s become our detachable hippocampus, whose location and safety we always account for. How sad, how pathetic, but progress is what it is.

And so, relief was palpable when the new phone arrived. At last! My cognitive abilities felt whole again. Back to the new normalcy. But there was a sting in the tail, and more hand-wringing to be endured. The S7 wasn’t done fucking me over. Samsung’s software for transferring my data and installed apps over to the new phone is excellent, but it has one flaw – it rightfully assumes it’s dealing with a normal person and that your previous device is a more recent model and or isn’t at death’s door. On my first attempt the data transfer stopped at 96% because I didn’t know that my Samsung S7 cannot transfer data with less than ten percent left on the battery – the battery started at 100% charge forty-five minutes earlier, so yeah, the S7 was trying to run it’s equivalent of a marathon with multi-organ failure. Then came transferring WhatsApp chats, scanning the QR code failed three times, because why not?

But I’ve taken out my revenge constructively by doing my part to tackle E-waste. The S7 has now been reborn as a coaster – no joke, it’s actually an ideal size for the task (as the picture at the top shows).

Will the Samsung A54 last me eight years before it becomes a coaster too (then I’ll have matching set!)? I hope not, as not only is it a ridiculous ambition, using a compromised device as a fifty something man is simply not a viable proposition. An aneurysm induced by the stress of using a dying phone is not how I wish to depart, but, sadly, at this point, I can’t rule it out.