“If you’re not using your phone, put it in your pocket,” is what I should have told myself, as I left the building, tipping through the exit, and launching my device in an overarm throw into the car park. The protective glass I put over the screen wasn’t going to help anything, as the face landed face down.
A freak accident caused by not thinking in the moment smashed the screen of my phone, and my reliance on the device meant I could only see the cracks, the black mirror reflecting someone declaring themselves unlucky in the moment. My only fortune is that only the surface cracked, the screen itself remaining functional – I could still use it to catch the bus, and sign into programs at work – but green and purple lines would make themselves known, perhaps exacerbated by taking the phone out of my pocket and putting it back.
I would book a repair of my phone on the day of the incident, but that was set for Saturday – it was still Tuesday. On Wednesday, as the first few lines appeared, I realised I would need to cradle my device in my hands as I walked, the exact opposite of what I should be doing in order to prevent any further damage, because who would ever keep a spare smartphone at home for situations like this? This keeping myself aware of my phone’s new-found fragility also bled through to the preparations for its repair.
In short, if you do not have a plan for backing up your data, find one, and find it now. I was faced with the advice to complete a backup, because the diagnostic processes to be run on my phone may result in data loss, and following multiple transfers of data from one phone to another over the years, a sidestep had never been needed before now. Perhaps that was one level of trust too far in the range of phones I prefer.
With my phone made by the manufacturer of my desktop computer, it would be very easy to back one up to the other – as well as their making stronger phones that have bouncier screens – but when they both have the same 256 GB storage capacity, that option is rendered impossible. I ultimately had to move some items to other devices, like thousands of unsorted photographs and screenshots that I will get to eventually, while paying for cloud storage to hold vital items like phone messages and contacts, and ultimately delete episodes of podcasts that were saved, deciding that they can be downloaded again if I need them later – they won’t become “lost media” if I don’t have direct access to them for a while.
Fortunately, the replacement of my screen, while costly, was performed without my hitch, and no data was lot. The manufacturer must warn of data loss because they are ultimately not responsible for your data, the same way that manuals for calculators contain disclaimers confirming they are not responsible for the answers generated by their machines. The user must know their answer has been calculated correctly, and the user must look after their data – I have just realised that may apply to the cloud storage as well.
In all, I spent under two hours without my phone, an experience that cannot now generate that level of anxiety again, through having been experienced once. Losing your phone is now like losing your keys, because that is the level of security and importance now expected by this Swiss army knife of devices, a level of convergence that risks becoming unhelpful. It may now be more useful to spread some use requirements across separate devices – your keys cannot be your camera, or your watch, or your calculator. Your clothes may need bigger pockets in future.
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