Is your phone really just an anxiety-making self-torture device?

DO YOU use your phone to speak to people who are far away, or to torment yourself when they don’t instantly reply to your inane messages? 

Take our test and find out.

You send a text to someone you fancy. After three minutes have elapsed with no reply do you:

A) Think nothing of it. People are busy.

B) Turn into a shivering ball of anxiety and self-flagellation and check your phone every 15 seconds until they finally text back a confusing and disappointing ‘thumbs up’ emoji.

Your battery goes flat while you’re out shopping. Do you:

A) Think ‘I must charge it when I get home’.

B) Panic, run into the nearest branch of Costa and spend the best part of a fiver on a coffee so you can sit by a plug, then receive one text about PPI.

Your phone rings, indicating someone wants to actually talk rather than text. Do you:

A) Answer it with a hearty and delighted ‘Hello there!’.

B) Freeze in horror at the thought of speaking to another human being, then hide it under a pillow until you’re sure they’ve gone.

You download Instagram and look at some pictures. Do you think:

A) ‘Gosh, what a lot of effort people put into making their lives seem constantly amazing when they probably spend most of their time eating crisps.’

B) ‘Everyone else is having such an amazing time while all I do is eat crisps. I must immediately organise a trip up a volcano to drink cocktails!’

Mostly As. Congratulations! You are using your phone as the useful method of communication it was designed to be.

Mostly Bs. You are going to have a nervous breakdown. Throw your phone in the bin and go and live on a remote Scottish island with no wi-fi.

Mobile phone salesman looks like he might actually hit you

A SALES assistant gives the impression he might turn violent if people do not buy the mobile phone he wants them to.

Martin Bishop quickly moves from ‘upselling’ a more expensive phone to verbal bullying and finally looking as if he is about to start throwing punches.

Customer Tom Logan said: “I’d only popped in to replace my old Nokia but this really aggressive guy kept showing me expensive ones and saying ‘You don’t want a piece of shit!’.

“I said I was just looking for a basic phone but within seconds he was shoving something the size of a small widescreen TV in my face and shouting ‘Let’s get your contract signed!’.

“When I tried to explain I didn’t really need a massive iPhone he started bouncing around and getting right in my face like some psycho trying to start a fight outside a kebab shop.  

“He really caught me by surprise and I started thinking maybe I was the one being a twat for not getting a good phone.

“In the end I didn’t get the most expensive one but I did spend £200 more than I’d planned. Still, it’s better than getting my head kicked in, and apparently you can edit films on it.”