Since the birth of iPhones (RIP Nokia, you old friend), you’ll no doubt have become slave to your phone’s eye-wateringly pitiful battery life. And glued to it at all times. We can’t even begin to count the number of times we’ve sat on a bus, manically closing apps and turning our screen brightness down to conserve enough juice to arrange to meet friends, only for the 7% the phone claimed it had to be drained by another friend texting you a picture of a cat eating a marshmallow (or something). This guy absolutely knows the fear that comes with diminishing phone battery; so much so he thought he could inconspicuously climb onto the stage of a Broadway show, to plug his phone into what turned out to be a fake plug socket. Dedication right there.
But our phone’s 1% battery isn’t just responsible for us needing to get a table seat on every train journey we go on (tables = plugs, obviously). It’s actually making us properly stressed. Over 61% of British people claim to be to be ‘frustrated’ and 25% ‘panicked’ when their phone battery dies, according to a new survey by smartphone case maker Mophie. Okay, we know they’re probably slightly biased-slash-wanted that to be the outcome, but we’re buying it.
And it’s not just the battery life issue, is it? Our smartphones are littered with stress-inducing landmines ready to send us into fully-blown phone fear at any given moment. A case in point:
The red email dot
Yes, email app, we are aware that there are 37 unopened emails in our inbox. You reminded us of that fact all night by vibrating next to our heads and keeping us awake. We do not need an angry red circle on our home screen to remind us we’re falling behind at work/socialising/life.
**The other red dot **
Why oh why is there a red dot telling us we’ve got a voicemail when we’ve phoned our inbox and there ISN’T a new one? Clearing the voicemail inbox completely, backing up data and doing a hard shutdown doesn’t help, and nor does phoning the phone provider, who have confirmed that you, indeed, have no messages to collect. Equally annoying, when you know who's left you a voicemail and can’t be arsed to listen to it. But have to just to get rid of that hateful circle.
The Tinder freeze-out
So you’ve got a notification that you’ve got a new match, but when you look at the app you can’t see any in your ‘likes’ list. You assume that they’ve just changed their minds and blocked you, only to realise that it was Tinder doing that weird freeze thing it does and there’s a tonne of messages from your match which you’ve now ignored. Yet more evidence that your iPhone wants you to die alone.
The reveal-all message function
Nothing is more fear-inducing than realising that your best mate has texted you in a meeting about how ‘wasted we were at the weekend’ and the whole message flicks up on your locked screen. And your boss sees it. Even though you told him/her you had a cold all weekend and that’s why you’re feeling shit today. In fact, what is this function for? Why would you possibly want to broadcast text messages to the world on the locked screen anyway?
**Autocorrect **
Oh, autocorrect – how hilarious you are when you’re ruining the lives of other people. Not so funny when you’ve just sent a message saying you want a crackpipe for your birthday. True story.
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Follow Sophie on Twitter @sophiecullinane
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.