My phone owns me and it's not OK

My phone.

My world.

And when I lose it, the end of that world - or close to it.

When you think about it, our reliance and addiction to our phones - and I know I’m not alone - is pretty sad but also makes us incredibly vulnerable.

When somebody else loses a phone, we have a tendency to flippancy - it’s just a phone after all and sometimes even insured.

It means nothing.

But when it is your own, that despairing, panicked, sense of loss and fear is like no other.

Not only is our phone the window to our world, through contacts with friends, family and the entire world, for many it broadcasts the identity we choose via social media, it contains our precious memories in photos, videos, notes and trails of messages and crucially instant, one touch, access to our bank accounts, our credit cards, our personal accounts.

For those who choose to list their pass words via a notes app it is an open invitation to fraudsters and thieves to destroy all that has been worked hard for.

I don’t list my passwords, but the recent loss of my phone was nonetheless devastating as I panic-searched, imagining my precious world in the hands of an opportunistic thief as I dropped it out of my pocket and left it in a shop.

As I desperately tried to access my account online, I imagined the street transaction, my small electronic life swapped for a plastic bag of heroin perhaps, or pawned for cash.

Even worse a group of strangers with password-cracking skills, scrolling through my personal life and then publishing online.

A spending spree on my Amazon account, on e-bay, the list of horror goes on.

Of course, it’s not that easy - or is it? T

hese days technology is set up to help us in situations like this but in a necessary crime avoidance you have to jump through hoops to get access to your phone accounts - authentification is needed which is of course sent to the phone you don’t have.

It’s enough to make you swear off technology for life.

Maybe it’s time.