My return to the dark ages

Isaac Asimov, in his brilliant Foundation series, used the decline of the Roman empire as the inspiration for a hubristic tale about the existential threat that befalls all advanced civilisations if they rest on their laurels for too long. In his specific recasting, it was an ailing Galactic empire that was threatened by 30,000 years of dark and barbaric ages unless steps were taken to preserve cultural and technological knowledge in the galaxy. The moral of the story isn't very different to that garnered from a study of Europe's early Middle Ages: the Dark Ages are to be feared and avoided precisely because they represent the sort of social regression that makes everyone worse off.

I mention all this because, on a recent weekend, I was flung kicking and screaming into a little dark age of my own. Mine, however, did not come in the shape of a galactic meltdown but by way of a much smaller point of failure: a connectivity outage on my smartphone. After weeks of ignoring the little update icon in my iPhone settings, I finally yielded to Apple's command to download the latest version of its operating system, iOS8. The first hints that something was wrong came the following morning when I became plagued by suspiciously intermittent 4G connectivity on my way to work. This was inconvenient but hardly unusual. Besides, I thought to myself, it's precisely the sort of connectivity black hole I carry a book, an iPad and a Kindle in my bag for.

By the time I got to the office, however, things had gone from bad to worse: I now had no calls, no internet - no network coverage at all. A feeling of panic began to run through my body. How would I get the two-step verification codes I needed for all my accounts? I had printed out some back-up codes but could no longer remember where I had put them.

I felt helpless. Disconnected. Anxious. All the classic hallmarks of an addict unable to get a hit. All I could think about was how my plans would be disrupted; how I'd miss my deadlines; how I'd upset contacts; stand up friends. Panic subsided when I found the verification codes. WiFi was also still working. But the message from my network provider's help desk remained disconcerting: "Madam, you should have full service on your phone as far as we're concerned. Try switching your phone off and on again?"

Not helpful advice. Nor was any I tried to gather from the online forums. By now it was Wednesday. I had gone nearly three days without a network connection and, as I had feared, untold havoc had been left in my wake.

And now the phone was eating up all my data as well - a big problem because a long weekend was fast approaching and I was supposed to be spending it abroad. My schedule simply did not have time for dilly-dallying about at the Apple store. And so I faced a stark dilemma: miss my flight to go to the store and save all my data; or embrace the lack of connectivity, keep calm and carry on.

Two days back, of course, the prospect of being unconnected while abroad would have struck me as nothing less than a Defcon-two event. Yet, by now, a strange thing began to happen. My involuntary smartphone detox was beginning to have some unanticipated secondary effects. My anxiety levels had, in a way, been greatly reduced. I had become more focused. I'd finished that book.

I'd also begun to miss the physical presence of my friends. Efforts to organise a get-together via the traditional method of a landline call even led to something I hadn't experienced in ages: an hour-long catch-up with a friend by voice.

Most significantly of all, I'd become more organised, punctual and adept. At dinner, I'd begun paying attention to the people I was with. It was like being "present in the moment" again after a long and under-appreciated absence from life itself.

It's worth pointing out that I did finally discover a fix for the phone on the Monday. It involved rebooting it without reloading the back-up data from the cloud. But was I glad to be back in the hyperconnected hive brain of the modern world? Honestly, I can't say that I was.

The truth is that even now scholars disagree about just how dark and regressive Europe's Dark Ages really were. Some even argue that the period brought about more positive developments than it did bad. For example, the foundations of modern law and parliamentary democracy owe much to the social protocols that were established during that era. Furthermore, it's precisely because the common man was forced to fend and think for himself again that the great advancement in professional skills and creative crafts occurred.

If that's truly the case, perhaps we could all learn from the technological dark side every now and then?

Izabella Kaminska is an FT Alphaville reporter

Susie Boyt returns next week

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