Jennifer O’Connell: ‘Technology has made idiots of us all. Or maybe it’s just me’

Theoretically, there’s no excuse for losing stuff anymore. Theoretically, technology has made it impossible.

Your smartwatch knows where your phone is. Your phone knows where your laptop is. Your laptop knows where your smartwatch is. For everything else, you can buy a Bluetooth tracking device. Attach it to your keys, your bike, your wallet, your spouse, or whatever you’re in the habit of losing, and you’ll never mislay it again.

Theoretically.

I say “theoretically” because, despite being a Silicon Valley refugee and pimped up with more fancy tech gadgets than Elon Musk’s favourite godchild, I managed to lose my phone recently.

It happened while I was walking along the quays. I stopped to take a photo of the sunlight glinting on the Liffey, mostly to distract myself from the fact that I was on my way to Facebook HQ to chair a panel discussion for Safer Internet Day. I get a bit nervous about speaking in public, so I had left plenty of time to sit in a nice hotel with a nice coffee and calmly read over my notes, as opposed to, say, arriving late, with bad hair, sweat patches under my arms, and no clue what I was going to say.

As I stood framing the shot, a cyclist came barrelling past, and yelled “Get out of the bike lane!” at me. It could have been worse: across the street, another cyclist swerved around a white van, and yelled “Bigot!” in the window.

I was in the hotel, thinking about how cycling a bike in the city is a lot like Twitter – you get to shout rude things at people and whizz off, leaving them with the impression of a vaguely egg-shaped head – when I reached for my phone. It wasn’t there. I checked my smartwatch, but it greeted me with a mournful icon that meant the phone was out of range.

I tried the ladies bathroom, and then I circled the hotel lobby, tapping the icon on the watch, which is supposed to make my phone ping. There was no answering ping, so I went outside and retraced my steps to where I had taken a photo of the river. I remembered the cyclist, who was – I now suspected – not just a two-wheeled troll, but possibly a thief too.

Back at the hotel, I pulled out my laptop and typed "Find my phone". A map appeared, showing a blue dot somewhere on Misery Hill.

“That’s just outside,” said the lovely waiter, whom I had marshalled to help in the search efforts.

I went back outside to the aptly-named hill, jogging and tapping, but there was no ping. I checked the Facebook lobby, and asked the friendly receptionists if they’d heard anything ping lately.

New passwords

By now, I was mentally scrolling the list of apps I was going to have to add new passwords for. Amazon, eBay, PayPal, iTunes, various banking apps. I thought about all the ideas saved in the notes on my phone, brilliant ideas possibly, brilliant ideas now lost forever. Scraps of columns, outlines of novels, business ventures. Things I read about grief or happiness or sugar that had struck a chord with me.

Lists of stuff I am grateful for, and stuff I have to buy in Lidl. My children's shoe sizes. Random, mysterious notes to myself, like "avoid hyperpalatable foods" and "She is making a podcast about her dating adventures from a closet in her house". Pin codes. Oh God, the pin codes.

I thought about how I was going to be late for the event, and I couldn’t call them to tell them, and as I don’t know my husband’s phone number, I couldn’t ring him either to cancel everything and withdraw all the money from our bank accounts.

I rushed back to the hotel and my laptop. “PHONE LOST, CHANGE PASSWORDS” I messaged him with all the lightness of touch of a telegram sent across enemy lines in the second World War. Then I thought about the irony that I was going to be late for a safer internet event because I had broken the first rule of not being a colossal idiot on the internet, by having the same password for every single thing.

I arrived at the event late, with bad hair, sweat patches under my arms, and no idea what I was going to say.

Everyone was very nice. I wasn't actually that late. Someone made me a coffee. Someone else told me a story about a friend who had lost her phone on a night out, and later found it in her bra.

I fixed my hair, applied some deodorant, and sat in a quiet corner to look over my notes. I went to pull out my notebook, and pulled out my phone instead. It hadn’t been stolen by a passive aggressive cyclist. I hadn’t dropped it in the glinting Liffey. It was in my bag, where it had been all the time, silenced by a dead battery. I slipped it back in my bag and said nothing.

Technology, I decided, has made idiots of us all. Or maybe it’s just me.

joconnell@irishtimes.com