Hello and welcome to Spectator Out Loud. Each week we ask a few of our writers to read their piece from the magazine.

On this episode, Mary Wakefield tells us how to cure a smartphone addiction.

Hannah Thames reviews the latest production of King Lear.

And Cosmo Landisman says he got high recently.

First up, Mary Wakefield.

Somehow, I've lost the light phone that I bought to replace the dumb phone

that I hoped would break my addiction to the iPhone. The light phone that I bought to replace the dumb phone that I hoped would break my addiction to the iPhone.

The light phone is the latest bit of hipster kit, designed to mimic a smartphone but without the distracting internet connection.

I don't know if it works or not, because as I say, I've lost it, and I'm despairing, but not surprised.

It's been three and a half years since I first thought I'd try to escape the iPhone's clutches,

and over that time, it's had whitted me, easily and consistently.

A crop of articles have appeared recently by journalists who've made the leap and freed themselves from smartphones.

I represent another, less admirable demographic.

What I can offer you is not a view from the other side, but a cautionary tale.

I first became aware of the extent of my habit in the winter of 2018 as I cycled home from work.

At each red light, I found myself fumbling for the phone in my pocket, scattering barrows,

and checking for updates and new messages without having made a conscious decision to do so.

I noticed other cyclists doing the same, faces lit up in the evening dark. What were we looking for? What could have changed in the

seven minutes between red light stops? It scared me. I found the screen time monitor. Eight hours a

day I was spending on it. The next day,

I set about looking for a replacement phone, a dumb phone of the sort I used in my 20s. The iPhone

was soon to be a thing of the past. I was quite sure of it. What I hadn't realized then is the

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