I went to IMEX without a smartphone - and what I found surprised me
No Google Maps. No social media. No camera roll. Armed with a disposable camera, a notebook and some questionable navigation skills, M&IT editor Paul Harvey set out to attend IMEX in Frankfurt without a smartphone. The result was equal parts liberating, inconvenient - and unexpectedly revealing.
“Just use your phone, Paul!” The shout rebounded around the departure lounge of gate B62 at Frankfurt airport.
Moments earlier I had been attempting to board my flight home by scanning a boarding pass displayed on my laptop. Not my phone. My laptop.
It turns out that when you've spent four days attending IMEX Frankfurt without a smartphone, boarding passes become surprisingly complicated.
The scanner didn't like my improvised setup. Neither did the people from the airline.
"Do you not have your pass on your phone, sir?"
This was not a question with a short answer.
After several increasingly awkward seconds of wrangling my laptop at different angles, and much cursing and panicking, the scanner finally beeped. I was through.
A huge sigh of relief, it should all be plain sailing from here.
Challenge complete. I think…
"The first consequence of being without my phone was becoming hyper aware of just how much everybody else was using theirs"
The idea had sounded simple enough before I left home. Attend IMEX without a smartphone. No Google Maps. No social media. No photo reel, no news apps, no endless checking of emails.
Just me, a notebook, a disposable camera and whatever happened next.
I anticipated inconvenience. What I got was something less expected.
The first thing I noticed as I set out for Frankfurt from deepest East Sussex on Monday morning was how much of modern travel exists inside a screen.
Waiting on the station platform for my train to Gatwick, I instinctively reached for a phone that wasn't there. I had a full 10 minutes until the train came. What exactly was I supposed to do? Just stand there? Looking at stuff? Awful.
Yet once the initial discomfort passed, something unexpected happened. I acclimatised. The ensuing train journey felt calmer. Instead of spending an hour checking boarding pass requirements, weather forecasts and gate information, I read a newspaper.
At Gatwick itself I completed the revolutionary act of eating breakfast while doing a crossword.
Around me, hundreds of people scrolled. In the departure lounge, on the moving walkways, on the aircraft before take-off, on the aircraft immediately after landing. There was no let-up.
The first consequence of being without my phone seemed to be becoming hyper aware of just how much everybody else was using theirs. Maybe I was jealous. I eventually stopped watching them and started reading my book.
Frankfurt itself offered the next surprise.
Walking from my hotel to SITE Nite Europe, I would normally have spent the journey glancing at Google Maps every couple of minutes to confirm I was still heading in roughly the right direction.
Instead, I had a few handwritten instructions in my pocket.
Left past the cathedral. Cross the river. Venue straight ahead.
That's all.
And for perhaps the first time in more than a decade of annual visits to Frankfurt, I actually noticed Frankfurt.
The vast terracotta bulk of the cathedral rising above winding streets.
Timber-framed buildings surrounding cobbled squares.
People sitting outside bars enjoying the lingering warmth of a May evening.
I've been coming here every year for longer than I care to admit, yet without a screen competing for attention, I realised I might only just be seeing the city properly.
The biggest surprise, however, was people.
I assumed not having a phone would make networking harder, but the opposite happened.
My disposable camera became an accidental conversation magnet.
Everybody noticed it, everybody laughed, everybody had a story. The camera was nostalgia in physical form.
One person became completely baffled by its operation despite the instructions being, essentially, "press button".
Others immediately began reminiscing about school trips and family holidays.
And because people asked about the camera, they asked about the challenge.
And because they asked about the challenge, I ended up talking. A lot.
At one point on the show floor a man spotted me taking a picture and asked what the camera was all about. When I explained, his face lit up.
He told me about losing his phone on the first day of a three-week trip to Greece. Unexpectedly, he had loved it, that feeling of calm and disconnect.
Then he admitted something interesting; he would never voluntarily do the same thing again. Not because he hadn't enjoyed it, but because he couldn't bring himself to choose it.
The conversation eventually moved onto business, and by the time we finished talking, I had his email and a promise to get in touch to discuss some things further. Possibilities had emerged that simply wouldn't have existed if I’d had my phone as usual.
It wasn't an isolated incident.
The challenge sparked dozens of conversations across the show floor.
Potential contributors, contacts, new relationships. The experiment genuinely changed what happened during my week - not just how I experienced it.
What fascinated me most was people's reactions.
Some thought it sounded liberating. Some thought it sounded horrifying. One person told me their Gen Z students found the challenge inspiring. Others looked genuinely anxious on my behalf. A lot of people called me brave (!).
Several people congratulated me on my efforts, before immediately explaining why they themselves absolutely could not possibly attempt such a thing. And most of those explanations sounded suspiciously unconvincing to my ears.
But what became clear was that the experiment wasn't really about my phone. It was about everybody else's relationship with theirs.
Then there was boredom.
Modern life has become extraordinarily efficient at eliminating boredom.
Waiting for a session to start? Standing in a queue? Five spare minutes?
That’s what your phone is for.
At one education session I instinctively reached into my pocket before remembering there was nothing there, and for a few seconds I genuinely didn't know what to do.
Then I realised I didn't need to do anything. I could just sit. Think.
And if I really needed some screen time, I could watch the seconds tick by on my Casio.
Later, I found myself alone in a Frankfurt pub two hours before my colleagues were due to arrive to watch a football match.
No book. No newspaper. No phone. Just seniors golf on the television and my own thoughts.
Initially it was excruciating. Then it became oddly refreshing. The truth is that uninterrupted thinking time has become surprisingly rare.
There is always an email to answer, a notification to check, a message to send, something to optimise. Something to consume. Without a phone, there was nowhere to hide from my own thoughts.
That turned out to be no bad thing.
By the end of the third day of the challenge I noticed I wasn’t getting the tension headaches I usually do at trade shows from being on a screen the entire time. I actually felt physically better. Maybe I could just permanently get rid of my phone?
Wait a minute, not so fast. Of course, there were drawbacks.
Phones solve real problems. Getting lost in Frankfurt past midnight is significantly less amusing than it sounds. Trying to navigate unfamiliar streets with handwritten notes felt adventurous - right up until it didn't.
And as a 6ft 6in man wandering around a foreign city, I became increasingly conscious that my experience wasn't necessarily universal. Smartphones provide reassurance, safety and accessibility that shouldn't be dismissed lightly. I felt safe, but not everyone would have done.
Likewise, there are limits to how much friction anyone should willingly tolerate. The boarding pass incident at Frankfurt airport demonstrated that perfectly. Technology exists for a reason.
But sitting on the airport transfer bus after the show, watching almost every passenger staring into a screen, I found myself reflecting on what I'd gained.
Sensory overload
IMEX is already a sensory overload. Thousands of people, and hundreds of meetings, conversations, ideas, events, opportunities.
Removing my phone didn't remove anything important. If anything, it removed competition. I paid more attention. I had better conversations, I felt less rushed. I worried less, and experienced more.
When I began the experiment, I half expected to spend four days proving that life without a smartphone is impossible.
Instead, I spent four days wondering whether we've all become a little too convinced that life with one is essential.
And as I finally squeezed past the boarding pass scanner and onto my flight home, I couldn't quite shake the feeling that the person shouting "Just use your phone, Paul!" might have been wrong.
Or at least, not entirely right.