Best of 2025: Can you live without a smartphone?
The Story
The Times
3.9 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 27 December 2025
⏱️ 25 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
A year ago Times columnist James Marriott ditched his smartphone to escape the endless notifications from his apps. How has he managed without a device many of us feel is indispensable? And could it be a more desirable future?
This episode was first published in February.
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Guest: James Marriott, Columnist, The Times.
Host: Luke Jones.
Producer: Edward Drummond.
Further reading: I’m a digital native — can I survive without my smartphone?
Photo: Jude Edginton for The Times Magazine.
Get in touch: thestory@thetimes.com
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, it's Luke here. Over the Christmas period, the team at the story are having a well-earned break, it says here. |
| 0:07.0 | But I know that you still need something to listen to. So for the next week, we are going to delve into our archives and bring you some of our favourites from 2025. |
| 0:17.3 | Like what you're about to hear next. See in the new year. |
| 0:22.0 | From the Times and the Sunday Times, this is the story. |
| 0:25.0 | I'm Luke Jones. |
| 0:32.0 | Do you have a problem looking at your phone every few minutes? |
| 0:35.7 | Mindlessly refreshing, Instagram, X, TikTok, Snapchat, |
| 0:39.5 | anything, just checking for messages even when, let's be honest, no one is sending you any. |
| 0:46.2 | Our James Marriott has taken a stand. |
| 0:51.4 | So at the beginning of last year, my best friend from university got married, and I was his best man. |
| 0:59.0 | And on the morning of the wedding, I had to make my way to his house by myself. |
| 1:03.7 | Something that should be quite simple, because he's my best friend and it's his house. |
| 1:06.5 | He had moved somewhat recently, but I should know the way. |
| 1:09.2 | And I got off at Walthamstow Station in North London |
| 1:12.4 | and began to walk in the direction that I believed his house was. |
| 1:17.4 | And I suddenly thought, I do not have a clue where I'm going |
| 1:19.5 | and had no means of finding out which direction I was going in. |
| 1:23.1 | So I had to ring my girlfriend, ask her to look up the directions for me on her computer and speak |
| 1:30.3 | them down the phone to me, having tried to identify by explaining to her my surroundings where |
| 1:35.1 | exactly Wolframstoy was. And then she managed directing me to my friend's house. And I did not miss |
| 1:39.2 | his wedding. But it was a hairy, it was a hairy episode. Which normally would have been resolved by just getting your phone out and going on maps. |
| 1:46.4 | Yeah, but that would be the problem because this was, I think, only a couple of weeks after I ditched my smartphone. |
... |
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