Today’s first exper­i­ment with addic­tive desire was quite spon­ta­neous. I decided to walk to work, as I’ve been doing a fair bit recently — it’s a lovely time of year to walk. I also decided not to lis­ten to any spoken-word pod­casts, which are my usual walk­ing fare, but just put some recently-bought albums on shuffle.

And not to check Twit­ter. Or do any­thing else with my phone.

I prob­a­bly found my hand in my pocket, touch­ing my phone, between ten and fif­teen times. A cou­ple of times, I’d got it unlocked before I realised what I was doing. Once, I refreshed Twit­ter, but man­aged to come to my senses and drop the phone back in my pocket before I saw the results.

One key thing I noticed: I tended to reach for my phone when I was feel­ing the need for human con­tact. But it’s a sub­sti­tute for the actual con­tact I needed. For exam­ple, I remem­bered that I’d not yet replied to an email from my Uncle Ray, and the first thing I did was reach for my phone. But I’d never actu­ally write or send that email while I was walk­ing down the street on the way to work. I was reach­ing for Twitter.

Other, sim­i­lar moments prod­ded me in the direc­tion of this con­clu­sion — I’d think about some­one I should get in touch with, or was feel­ing guilty about not reply­ing to, and my instinct would be to reach for my phone.

Now, I use the Too­dledo app on my phone for cap­tur­ing stuff I’ve got to do, so there’s maybe a link between “oh, I need to…” and grab­bing my phone. But I was able to watch my thoughts pretty well this morn­ing, and I don’t hon­estly think that’s the rea­son — just a rationalisation.

Really, I think I’m sub­sti­tut­ing the shal­low dis­trac­tions of Twit­ter for the deeper con­nec­tion I’d make by get­ting in touch with the peo­ple I should really be talk­ing to.