10/06/2026
Get off your phone…
This is a thought that occurs to me each time I interact with the buzzing glass slab that sits as my constant companion. We probably all think it, when we feel our eyes begin to ache, or our brains lose focus. We probably all want to throw the thing from the nearest window… maybe one day, not right now, there’s an infinite scroll to get through.
Brain Dead by local author Paul Robinson manages to do a couple of very useful things. Firstly, its approachable, engaging style and manageable length means that it will get you off your phone for a bit and keep you off it (it will . Secondly, Brain Dead makes you think about phones in a different way. This isn’t a sermon on Luddism and defenestrating your device, it’s about our mental health and how the way we use our devices is leading to over-stimulated, anxiety-ridden and increasingly tired minds. As Paul succinctly puts in in his text, we are “Awake, but not restored. Active, but not settled. Connected, but not rested.”
The other day I mounted the escalator in the Trinity and, for once, didn’t get my phone out of my pocket. Sometimes words spoken calmly and clearly, as they are here, can have quite an impact.
