• Phone loss, All Points East and captured memories
• Lost property and “Scan this QR code”
• Online banking
• Is it worth transitioning to a brick phone?

It was a hot and foggy evening with the sun beating down on our skin that shimmered with highlighter, sweat and temporary tattoos from the festival pop ups.

Kaytranada was ready to take the stage for his headlining act at All Points East festival at Victoria Park on Friday at the height of mid August. Swept up in the fever dream dance mob atmosphere, I was finishing recording the Canadian DJ’s crowd-pleaser Be Your Girl? when I opened my little green bag to place my phone inside. In the single moment my arm dropped down from up high *with* my phone, I frantically searched the contents of the tiny bag screaming out to my housemate that it had gone. She was also filming the end of the set when it happened, with the video showing my phone still in my hand but suddenly it had gone in a moment.

Maybe it was the dizziness of the drinks and the heat, but I was sure I dropped the phone to the ground instead of inside my bag as the crowd made their way towards the exit – miles away from our part of the park. We scoured the beaten and dusty ground for time, seeing bank cards and sunglasses and keys along the way – all which went to lost property, but no phone to be found. I saw another girl earnestly looking around the floor by her feet too, asked her what she was searching for – “AirPods”. “Oh, I’m looking for a phone,” I replied with a delirious half laughter hoping we could help each other.

Security with their bright green jackets soon approached us, requesting we exit the area. My housemate and I made our way to the welfare tent and lost and found to plead for my specific iPhone. “Everybody’s lost an iPhone13 today,” they told us – extremely helpful. Especially with my provisional drivers license, which acts as my form of ID, placed in the back of my phone so my information was on there too. (I’ll be a passport babe again until the new ID which costs £20, on top of replacing a costly phone, can be delivered.) The optimist in me imagined that someone had picked it up who knew me by name and would reach out to return it – 72 hours later and I’m sure this isn’t the case.

Before we left the festival grounds, the lost property guards looked wary as I approached them again, hellbent on not leaving until we’d exhausted the chance that the phone was still within the park, in that same area. Resigned, they advised that I wait until tomorrow as security would do a full sweep of the grounds before the next two days of All Points East, which also continues next weekend making chances of anything to be ‘found’ quite slim. Whilst I wait, they told me, I should in fact “scan this QR code” and fill in the details of the lost item. To reitarate, I should scan a QR code and leave my number to be contacted, two things you cannot do without a phone. Please give me strength. Of course, my housemate was able to do this with her phone and leave her number in hopes that we would get somewhere – three more forms later, optimism and patience and nothing has come of that.

When we eventually got home from the pilgrimage, I did all the necessary things of locking my phone via Find my iPhone, a phone which was now dead because I ended the festival on 10% (although with a portable charger on me). My boyfriend told me the day after via texts that come through if you’re an iPhone user, and is synced to my Apple laptop’s iMessage, that my Find my Friends was last in Victoria Park, once I told him about the blunder when we got in at 3am. Interestingly, the plot thickened when I looked for my own device to find it last alive on the A12 moving away from the park in the opposite direction to where we exited on foot. Again, the optimist in me hoped this was somebody I knew taking it with them to contact me about it in the coming days. I’ve now resigned to the fact that’s also not the case and some bonehead has instead nabbed it, in a getaway car no less???

Everyone told me I was acting calm about it and perhaps knowing this is so prevalent and has happened to three close people to me and even more, means that it was just a part of reality. The tears actually came as it sinked in that I lost a lot of cherished memories from the last 6 months due to not backing up my phone from full iCloud storage at 256GB. I just refused to pay more than the £3.50 per month and increase to £9 a month on top of other memberships (gym, Spotify, my SIM) and renting in London. Luckily, I post pretty frequently on socials so I can eventually grab some memories back, but for the little hidden moments, they’re gone for good.

Before its questioned how can someone reach full capacity on 256GB… my camera roll actually extends back to 2014 after using the same SIM from my first ever iPhone (6), the rest of which is synced to my Macbook at the least.

As I stayed inside, I looked at other avenues such as accessing my mobile banking but online. With apps, you can easily check how much is in your current account at mostly any given time, without having to find an ATM. Just another magic and convenience of smartphones. If someone transfers you money, it immediately notifies you and vice versa if its being taken out – at least with Barclays it does. I prefer mobile to online banking because it avoids all the questions and details needed by just using face or fingerprint ID. But this was my alternative option, only for it to also let me down. Once I got past the hurdles, the online banking said they would text me a code to log in… of course, this stops anyone without a phone from accessing their accounts without physically being in a bank, banks which are only open during office hours, may I add. The alternative to get a code wasn’t much more joy. If they can’t text you a code, they’ll send you a letter by mail which takes up to five working days. To get a code. To log in to your banking. Right.

I quickly noticed how everything is linked to having a phone nowadays, and not just any phones, but smartphones. Lots of posters and ads will ask you to scan a QR code, something you can only do with a smartphone. In restaurants and pubs there’s the alternative to go up to the register for the old schoolers. But with two holidays fast approaching in September, another long weekend of festivities and hosting a friend in the matter of days…having the ability to download apps for scannable tickets, easily being able to communicate with a friend when out and about on where to meet up, knowing the time and weather (is it going to rain???) at any given moment, and setting alarms for the office would be extremely useful. Apps and QR codes – the very essense of a smartphone. Which begs the question, can we really transition to brick phones at this time in technology?

A part of me wanted to do this immediately after the event purely out of spite of the theft. If someone’s going to nab my iPhone that heats up all the time, battery has started to suffer, is locked and has terrible data service then why should I invest in another even nicer smartphone for the same thing to potentially happen. Yes, a brick phone would remove me from the reminder of the situation and annoyance of it all, I’d be detached from smartphone life and have more time on my hands. In fact, brick phones are even in right now with the y2k resurgence, my friend reminded me, offering a note of optimism. But in the end, there’s too many inconveniences I would be creating for myself.

The technological development of current society and with my interests in culture thats ever changing, almost demands a need for a semi-advanced gadget that allows us to stay in the know, whilst on the move. We can simply find ways to stay plugged in but with reduced screen time.