It is dead. My iPhone is dead. A few weeks ago, perhaps sensing obsolesence in the face of newer, shinier, more-fangled models, it gave up. Mid-scroll, with no warning or drama, it simply faded to white. Then it faded to black for a little bit. Then it faded to nothing. If memory serves me right, it whimpered a pathetic little whimper. And just like that, I was the reluctant owner of a very expensive but mostly useless glass and aluminium paperweight. I was no longer mobile.

Following a significant amount of contemplative profanity, I came to the conclusion that this turn of events was actually a wonderful opportunity, a release from the insistent nag nag nag of the internet, a road back to a simpler way of life. Never again would I be distracted from the magnificent world around me! I was free! Kind of!

It turns out that I still needed a phone, a phone-phone, because I have responsibilities as a parent that necessitate being contactable and able to phone for ambulances and pizzas and suchlike. Adrift mid-contract, I decided the best course of action would be to opt for the cheapest phone available. Forty pounds bought me a horrifyingly lightweight and salmon-hued ‘feature phone’ (i.e. one with as few features as possible … it’s some kind of cognitive dissonance marketing trick) with which I can make calls and send text messages. I welcomed the simplicity of it. Plus it has Snake!

Cut to a few weeks later and … this thing is awful. The tiny screen. The clacky, plastic keys. The non-weight of it. The non-intuitive everything. The not quite right Snake. The novelty of being unshackled from the demands of modern life wore thin very, very quickly. It turns out that I quite like modern life. I miss the smartness of my smartphone.

I’m surprised at what I haven’t missed. Emails. Dozen of tabs festering in my browser. Tweeting. In fact, pretty much any app that requires me to be online – all of that noise can wait until I’m sat at my desk. The urgency was only ever an illusion. No, it’s the more utilitarian features that I’ve missed; an invaluable Swiss Army Knife of calculator, dictionary, torch, atlas – not to mention my precious, precious to-do list.

But mostly it’s the camera. Yesterday, I saw a hot air balloon that looked like it was headed towards the lingering morning moon. The universe positioned everything just so and … it was a complete waste of time, because I wasn’t able to instantly turn it into a JPG, and now I have to rely on storing it in the limited capacity of my own feeble, squishy memory.

I’d taken for granted how valuable the camera was, particularly as a method – a habit – for processing the world around me and feeding it into my work. Sure, I have a ‘real’ camera that I sometimes take out with me, but it’s not the same. I’m used to having a camera with me everywhere, all of the time, happily tucked into a back pocket, ready for an instinctive fast-draw at a moment’s notice.

It’s a missing sense, a missing appendage. Countless times, I’ve reached for a phantom device to shoot interesting bits of type or beautiful book covers or random little uncanny occurrences, but every time my hand grasps at nothing and the moment gets washed away by time.

Maybe freedom from my smartphone isn’t so great after all. As much as we gaze down at our screens, we also gaze through them. Our black mirror generation may be destroying the fabric of society, but at least there’ll be some great pics. I want back in.

Daniel Benneworth-Gray is a freelance designer based in York, @gray; Illustration: sorbetto/iStock