Ed Sheeran has spoken openly about why he is mostly off the grid.
The “Shape of You” singer recently appeared on a podcast episode of Therapist with Jake Shane, where he had to tell the host that they couldn't exchange phone numbers because he doesn't have a cell phone to call or text him.
“I don't have a number, but you can have my email,” the Grammy winner said. “That's not me playing with you either.”
However, the “Bad Habits” singer admitted that his team gives him a phone to use when he attends events just for the purpose of being active on social media. “I have something I like, videos that I would then put on social media,” he said. “But it's not like an actively working phone.”
The decision to get rid of his phone was made in December 2015, when the singer remembered having too many contacts to keep up with. “I think he had the same number since he was 15,” he said. “I got famous and I had 10,000 contacts on my phone that I just… people just texted all the time. And I was constantly in contact with a lot of people.”
“I feel like with phones everyone expects you to answer, and if you don't answer, it's rude. “Sometimes you're just not in the headspace to respond, you're busy or doing whatever, but then you respond, then they respond to you… and suddenly you're on like 40 conversations at once.”
To change the stigma around the need to be constantly available and avoid phone addiction in general, Sheeran made the decision to ditch his phone and only use an iPad. His main method of communication now is email, and the singer explains that he only checks it once a week.
“On Thursdays or Fridays I sit down, usually in the car. I exploit all emails. Catch up. Talk to whoever… and that's it,” said the singer. “You can really limit your time.”
“I went to dinner yesterday after the Celtics and you just leave your iPad in your hotel room. I had dinner with my best friend. We caught up, had a long talk and that was it.”
He also highlighted another benefit of email, which is that no one expects an instant response, so there is no fear of a person's negative reaction when leaving it read.
Sheeran explained that not having a phone allows him to get bored, which he says is often when he comes up with song ideas. “When you're sitting there doing nothing… that's when I think of a lyric or a melody, or you'll get an idea of where to go next in your career,” he said.
“Nothing creative has ever come from being connected all the time. “Boredom is what makes someone think about an iPhone.”
Sheeran isn't the only singer who doesn't have technology, as country singer Dolly Parton only communicates through a fax machine. “I'm a low-tech girl in a high-tech world,” he said during a November 2023 episode of The Drew Barrymore Show.
“I don't want to talk to everyone who wants to talk to me. “I don't text because I don't want to have to respond,” the 78-year-old actress told Barrymore. “If someone calls me, I will answer if I want to talk to them or I will call them back when I can. Otherwise, I have too much to think about to clutter my mind with everything else.”
