English singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran is not a fan of modern-day technology, admitting he hasn’t had a cell phone in nearly a decade.
The 33-year-old made the statement during an appearance on the “Therapuss” podcast with Jake Shane, citing a lack of real-life interaction.
“I haven’t had a phone since 2015; I got rid of it in 2015 … I found I had the same number from like age 15, and I got famous, and I had 10,000 contacts in my phone. I just was losing real-life interaction, so I got rid of it,” he said.
While he tries his best to stay away from technology, the four-time Grammy award winner is not completely off the grid and does have an iPad, which he only uses once a week.
“I moved everything onto email, which I reply to once a week. I have an hour of my time on a Thursday or a Friday. I sit down usually in the car. I blast all the emails, catch up, do all of the talking to whoever and then that’s it.”
Mr. Sheeran said the move impacted him creatively, noting the time away from phones helped him with songwriting.
“I go for dinner with my wife, and she will go to the toilet at a restaurant, and she can sometimes take a while, and usually 10 years ago, I would take out my phone, flip through Instagram, but when you’re just sitting doing nothing, that’s when I’ll think of a lyric or a melody.”
He recommends others do the same, and rather than focusing on what everyone else is doing online, to take the time and positively impact your own life and career path.
“You’ll have an idea about where to go next with your career. Boredom is what makes someone think of an iPhone.”
Mr. Sheeran previously opened up on other podcasts that his mental health was struggling because of the device, and the pressure to answer text messages right away would stress him out.
“I got really, really overwhelmed and sad with the phone. I just spent my whole time in a very low place … it was, like, a veil just lifted ... I didn’t so much cut contact with people, I just limit contact with people,” he said on The Collector’s Edition podcast.
Aside from not feeling overwhelmed anymore, he says the best thing about quitting phones are “the moments that I have with the people I love in person, uninterrupted.”
Mr. Sheeran continues to be a vocal proponent of ditching technology, saying it has gotten far too complex and out of hand. He believes phones are now too advanced, called artificial technology “weird.”
“If you’re taking a job away from a human being, I think that’s probably a bad thing because … the whole point of society is we all do the jobs and the whole thing. If everything is done by robots, then everybody is going to be out of work.”
“For the last 60 years, Hollywood movies have been telling you, ‘Don’t do it,’ and now everyone’s doing it, and I’m just like, ‘Have you not seen the movies where they kill us all?’” he quipped on Audacy Live radio.
Meanwhile, the singer is currently on his global “Mathematics” tour, with his next performance scheduled for June 8 at the Lucca Summer Festival in Italy.
