YA author Morgan Matson on Take Me Home Tonight and a modern day digital nightmare

One Night Out With No Phone: A Survival Guide for the Unthinkable – Morgan Matson

So. *Captain America sitting backward on a chair voice* You’re out in the world, away from home…and you don’t have your phone with you.

First of all, you should figure out how you got into this situation in the first place, so you can make sure never to replicate it. Did you drop your phone down a subway grate? Leave it behind in an Uber? Have you time-traveled here from 1852? (If it’s the latter, you probably have way more pressing things to worry about. Good luck with all that! Have someone show you what the internet is. Maybe try a smoothie.)

Second of all, try not to panic. This will be hard. It’s understandable – panic is the reasonable response to being without the device that we’ve all been holding in our hands or putting in our bags or pockets for over a decade now. And so suddenly having it disappear is a big deal. I only see my dentist twice a year, but if she suddenly vanished, I would also be concerned. And I use my phone all day long, every day. So it’s understandable that your first response might be what do I dooooooooo.

In my new book, Take Me Home Tonight, due to a variety of circumstances (hijinks!! Gotta love em!) both the main characters, Kat and Stevie, find themselves without their phones – and without each other – in New York City, a place where they do not live. When I described this plot to a friend of mine she said, “Oh, you’re writing horror now.” And she’s not wrong – suddenly being without your phone can be unsettling, disorienting, and just plain scary. Our phones are our security blankets and our jukebox, our GPS, our news source, and our way of finding out what our friends ate for breakfast that day. And suddenly being without this all-in-one device is a way to realize just how much you’ve come to rely on it.

For example, right now is probably the moment you’re realizing you don’t know anyone’s phone number. The only phone number I am fully confident in is the landline of the house I grew up in. Beyond that…it’s all a bit fuzzy. I have no idea what the numbers – or even the area codes! – are of some of my dearest friends. So borrowing someone else’s phone to call someone to help you is out. So I’m afraid you’re in this alone. And that’s okay! You’ll come out of this circumstance stronger for it, I promise.

You might even find that there are actually a few benefits to being without your phone. Seriously!

Not being without your phone forces you to be in the moment in a way that we all now have the ability to escape from. Long line at the bank? Look at Instagram stories. Bored walking down the street? See what’s happening on Twitter. Doing some mundane task? Podcast time! But when you don’t have your phone, and these feelings of boredom or anxiety crop up, you just have to kind of…sit with it. And when you do, sometimes you discover that it’s not the worst thing in the world to be alone with your thoughts. Maybe you’ll come up with an amazing idea for a new app or story or sandwich! Or maybe your mind will just wander and you’ll have a few moments of uninterrupted daydreams. Both are equally valid.

You also have to pay attention when you don’t have your phone, in a whole new way. When you know your map app can always get you back where you need to go, you don’t have to be super alert to where you’re going. But when it’s just you, it’s like everything gets heightened. Suddenly, you’re clocking landmarks and looking at actual street names for possibly the first time in years. And what’s more, you’re relying on yourself – and your own skills – to trust that you’ll remember, and be able to navigate, and find your way home. And that’s a pretty great feeling.

And finally, whenever your nightmare is over – and you are finally reunited with your phone – you’ll get the lovely delayed gratification that only comes with being away from it for an extended period of time. Texts! Messages! Emails! Stories! Suddenly, when you get a bunch of these all at once, it’s much more exciting – and you feel much more missed, in a good way – than it would have been if they’d been portioned out through the day.

So while I’m not advocating doing it all the time, if you are without your phone, you might find there are unexpected benefits to it that you never would have imagined. By the end of Take Me Home Tonight, both Kat and Stevie – even though they were definitely inconvenienced by their phonelessness – have found some positive things about spending a night without one. I’m not advocating doing it all the time – but if it does happen, you might find benefits to it that you hadn’t considered.

But I’d make sure to write down people’s phone numbers first.

Just in case.

Morgan Matson’s latest book, Take Me Home Tonight, is now available wherever books are sold. Let us know if you’re planning to give it a look.