I recently wrote about public behaviour and how difficult it has become to navigate shared space. This is a continuation of that argument.

The most common justification for being on the phone in public is safety.

It does not quite hold up.

Context matters. There are situations where calling someone is sensible, even necessary. But that is not what most of us see day to day. What we see is constant connection. Voice notes. Video calls. Speakerphone conversations filling entire carriages.

This is not protection.

It is something else.

A comfort blanket.
A performance of busyness.
An avoidance of stillness.
A way of filling space so that nothing else can get in.

I understand the instinct. My phone and wallet were stolen last year in central London. I know how quickly your sense of ease can disappear. Fear does not need to be rational to feel real.

But there is a difference between responding to risk and rehearsing it.

When every quiet moment is filled with noise, when every journey becomes a call, when presence is replaced with distraction, something shifts. The world feels less navigable, not more. You stop observing. You stop engaging. You retreat.

And in doing so, you do not become safer.

You become disconnected.

Phones create the illusion of control. Of being accompanied. Of being insulated from whatever might happen around you. But they also reduce awareness, make behaviour more predictable, and in some cases increase exposure.

That tension is rarely acknowledged.

Not every person on a call is anxious. Not every moment of connection is avoidance. But when it becomes constant, habitual, automatic, it is worth asking what function it is really serving.

Because for many people, it is not safety.

It is comfort.

And the more we rely on that comfort, the less prepared we are to deal with the spaces we move through.