Ed revealed his cellphone freedom when the host, Jake, offered to exchange phone numbers. “I don’t have a number, but you can have my email,” Ed said before adding, “That isn’t me playing you off either.”
The “Shape of You” singer’s team recently gave him a phone for necessary moments, like when he attended the Boston Celtics game courtside with singer Reneé Rapp for the NBA Eastern Conference Finals on Thursday, May 23.
“I have something to like video stuff that would then go up on social media,” he said. “But it’s not like an active working phone.”
Ed said he decided to get rid of his phone around December 2015 after realizing he had too many contacts from before he rose to fame. “I had the same number from like age 15, I think,” he said, “and I got famous, and I had 10,000 contacts in my phone that would just — people would just text the whole time. And I was just constantly in touch with a lot of people.”
“I feel like with phones, everyone expects you to reply, and if you don’t reply, it’s rude,” he said.
“Sometimes you’re just not in a headspace to reply, you’re busy or doing whatever,” Ed continued, “but then you reply, then they reply back… and suddenly you’re in like 40 conversations at once.”
Ed discovered “a better way” to “limit your time” texting and being hooked on your phone by switching to email. “I just was losing real-life interaction, so I got rid of [my phone], I got an iPad, I moved everything onto email, which I reply to once a week.”
“I went to dinner after the Celtics yesterday, and you just leave your iPad in your hotel room. I had dinner with my best friend. We caught up, had a long chat and that was it.”
“No one expects a reply to an email instantly,” Ed said. “It’s a cultural thing when the What’s App tick happens, and then you have to reply.” According to Ed, you can avoid people being upset over being “left on read” with an email that lowers the expectation of an instant response.
Ed concluded that without a smartphone, he’s exposed to “boredom,” which is when the best ideas are created. “When you’re just sitting doing nothing… that’s when I think of a lyric or a melody, or you’ll have an idea about where to go next in your career.”
“Nothing creative has ever come out of being connected the whole time. Boredom is what makes someone think of an iPhone.”
Sure, Ed has a way with lyrics, but he’s not too bad with life coaching. It’s a fair observation about our obsession with instant communication and adjusting to our current cellphone-driven lifestyles. I think I should “email” my parents every week instead of texting.
Cheers Ed!