The biggest first world problem of all? Changing your damn phone

Everyone said it would be easy. Easy-peasy. Easy as pie.

My wife, my teenage kids, my work colleagues. A doddle, they said.

So I’m not really sure where the root of my anxiety about changing my smartphone lay.

But anxious I was.

I had been avoiding the changeover for months — a classic tactic among the terminally technologically inept.

Sure, the Android phone was five years old, and showing signs of wear and tear. There were scratches and abrasions, the inside of the case was a biological hazard, and it took an extra few seconds to do simple tasks.

But the idea of getting a replacement left me cold. All that hassle!

Then, one evening last week, the screen just went blank. I couldn’t get it back on. And that caused an even bigger anxiety than the fear of getting a new one.

There is even a name for this anxiety — nomophobia (no-mobile-phone phobia, geddit?). It is characterised by feelings of panic and distress, triggered by the fear of being disconnected from people, and around half of people have suffered it at some stage.

I eventually got the phone working again by simply plugging in the charger. But it felt like I had performed CPR on a sickly person, and who knew when the next failure would occur — and whether it would be terminal next time?

Reader — my nomophobia trumped my anxiety about a changeover, which I don’t think even has a scientific name. My teenage son suggested dopeyphobia.

So, I made the call. I would be getting an upgrade.

When the new phone arrived, I set aside an evening this week for the changeover, and my family laughed in my face. A whole evening? Sure, it’s easy.

That word again.

Now, let me hasten to add, this was a very basic upgrade, in the world of technology. Same make and phone - but fancier and smaller with extra bells and whistles, naturally — and the same sim card.

There are many words to describe the two-day process that ensued.

Easy is not one of them,

Try nightmare. On stilts.

The agony began when I tried to start the changeover from the old phone to the new one in work, and couldn’t access the wifi.

Not to worry. I brought it home, accessed my home internet, and began the process there.

The first snag quickly arose.

I had to enter my Google email and password.

But I don’t have one, I wailed. All my emails are with their sworn rivals Microsoft.

My wife intervened with a heavy sigh.

“There’s a Google email address in your name coming up here,” she queried, looking at the screen.

Indeed there was. I swear I had never seen it before in my life.

“What’s the password for it?”

I stared blankly. How could I know the password for an email account that I had only just discovered I had? I decided it wasn’t the time to say ‘duh’ in reply.

Which was a good move, as my wife then proceeded to reset the password and I had passed through the first Circle of Hell.

Straight into the Second.

“What’s your Samsung password?”

This time, I didn’t need to answer. My blank face said it all. My wife sighed, even heaver than before, and managed to find a way to get me to the next level in this ultra-frustrating computer game.

She left the two phones side by side and departed the room to do something far less urgent.

And that’s when, for a fleeting few minutes, all went swimmingly. In fact, I was agog that by merely placing my new phone next to my old one, it would be able to transfer most of the data across. It was pure witchcraft, lads.

When my home screen photo appeared on my new screen, I thought I was home and hosed. The apps had transferred, and all my home page icons were in place.

I got cocky.

“It’s not been exactly easy, but it’s not too bad,” I told any family member who happened to be passing by (hurriedly, for some strange reason).

Then I hit a few more brick walls.

These were all, I admit, entirely of my own making.

In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m not great in the whole area of passwords, and now I discovered that I had forgotten some — no, most; no, almost all — of the various passwords I use for various functions on my phone.

Facebook. X. Spotify. Dunnes Stores. Ryanair. My Hotmail account. Fantasy football. A betting account. LinkedIn. My bank. OnlyFans (just joking).

All were asking for my user name and password to access them on my new phone.

I didn’t have a scooby.

Oh, I had a vague idea of a few passwords I have used down the years — OK, say 20 — but as I had gradually changed them, and as the password-setters changed the goalposts by adding numbers, then exclamation marks and whatnot, I hadn’t a clue which was which.

I wish I had written them down on a piece of paper, but that strikes me as a security risk.

And if I had put the paper in a safe, where would I write down the code for that? And where would I put it?

First world problems, I know, but problems nonetheless.

Luckily, my wife had returned and spotted my new-found anxiety.

With a calmness and tolerance that I frankly didn’t deserve, she told me to come up with one new password and proceeded to access all my apps on my new device.

“You should change some of these,” she advised. It’s not best practice to have the same password, apparently.

My anxiety levels were now dipping after two hours of high adrenalin flow. Almost there. Just need to transfer the sim card from the old phone to the new one.

This delicate process required a key, which I was very unfairly accused of mislaying when I opened the package.

With a clear-headed determination I had previously been sorely lacking, I improvised, took out the sim card with a safety pin... and promptly found it was a different size to the slot in the new one.

Cue a large glass of wine — and that cliff-hanger signalled the conclusion of day one of the phone changeover saga.

The next morning, I now had two phones, and I have to confess, I don’t know how drug dealers manage it. My old phone had most functions, plus the phone and text, my new one had most functions bar the phone and text.

Amid all that confusion, I also still needed to access my work email and Microsoft Teams account. And buy a plug because the connection in the box didn’t have one (grrr).

Luckily for my heart health, day two was a good day, thanks to the introduction of an IT expert.

The sim card slotted right into the new phone in a way that happens uncannily often when an IT expert steps in.

“But... but I thought it was a different size,” I spluttered, and the IT worker gave me a look very similar to the one my wife had given me a few times the previous day.

So, I have a new phone. A victory of sorts for us Luddites.

But, my god, if this one doesn’t see me to my grave, I swear the process of replacing it will do the job instead.