Try, if you can possibly bear it, to cast your mind back to London in summertime. Dappled sunlight filters through trees. Londoners spill onto the streets outside pubs, cradling amber-golden pints, the arms of their work shirts rolled to the elbow. Armies of Lime bikes litter the pavements. The foxes have abandoned their relentless, deafening winter escapades and started raising sweet, summer cubs. Dry January is but a distant memory. It’s beautiful, really.
And then, of course, there are the obligatory day festivals—All Points East being the mothership. I love that festival for a single, sacred moment: the instant everyone steps through the gates of Victoria Park, desperately trying to locate friends, post Instagram stories, or summon an overpriced beer. And then, like clockwork, their phones buckle under the sheer weight of 50,000 others attempting the exact same thing. Signal gone. No internet. Total digital blackout.
And for the next few hours, these hyper-online individuals are forced to do something terrifying: exist without the internet. No refreshing Twitter, no mindless scrolling, no WhatsApp group chaos. Just music, people, and vibes. It’s one of the last remaining forced disconnection moments in London.
Which is why I’m horrified at the relentless rollout of 4G and 5G on the London Underground since December 2022. Frankly, it might be one of the worst things to have ever happened to this city.
The assault of connectivity
There is not a single day now when I am not auditorily assaulted by someone else’s phone. It’s not just people making calls on speakerphone like they’re in their own living room. It’s the endless, schizophrenic barrage of short-form videos, scrolled through at double speed, each one screaming over the other. I don’t care what Andrew Tate or some TikTok life coach has to say about ‘grindset mentality’. I don’t care about the toddler vlogger shrieking over an unboxing video. Why am I being subjected to this?!
Oh, and let’s not forget the visual assault. I have, on multiple occasions, witnessed men openly browsing softcore porn on public transport. I have literally seen FaceTime phone sex on the Overground. Why? Because we gave people unlimited internet access without first checking if they were capable of behaving like functioning members of society.
And now, if the Mayor has his way, free city-wide WiFi could be next.
The death of public etiquette
The introduction of 5G has not only killed the Tube’s last refuge of silence, but it’s also destroyed basic human etiquette.
TfL recently suggested that Londoners are now less likely to offer seats on the Tube—not out of malice, but because their faces are glued to their screens. The unspoken London rule of “Let people off before you get on”? That’s gone too. Instead, we now have hordes of people standing cluelessly in doorways, blankly swiping through their phones.
I once watched a group of people collectively miss their stop because they were all too engrossed in their screens. The doors beeped. The train left. Not a single one of them noticed.
It’s only going to get worse.
Sadiq Khan’s Westminster-wide WiFi trial threatens to roll out free public internet access across the city, ensuring a ‘seamless roaming experience’. But I ask: for whom? The rest of us will be subjected to even more unfiltered noise, without even the brief, blessed pauses when connectivity falters.
And with London’s 5G already ranking as the worst in Europe, the idea of adding yet another layer of internet access is frankly terrifying.
The disappearance of London life
I have hand on heart, tears in my eyes, knees to the ground begged for the return of Tube etiquette. But beyond that, I mourn what we’ve lost.
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Remember when people used to read actual books and newspapers on the Tube? Now, those quiet, intimate moments—where you’d sneak a glance at your neighbour’s book title or share a silent nod over the Metro crossword—are disappearing.
Google Maps has destroyed the need to ask strangers for directions. Conversations with cabbies have dwindled. People no longer turn to fellow commuters for help when their phone batteries die. Everyone is isolated in their own digital bubble, scrolling through the same content, experiencing the same outrage, watching the same news cycle.
This is how a city loses its soul.
How do we fix it?
I won’t pretend we can uninvent 5G. But we can fight back.
Start small: put your phone away on the Tube. If you see someone watching TikToks with the volume blaring, ask them to use headphones. Offer your seat to an elderly person before they have to ask.
More importantly, be present.
A few months ago, I saw a child fall on the escalator. Everyone was too busy staring at their screens to notice. I caught them before they hit the ground. And in that moment, I realised: this is what we’re losing.
Ferris Bueller said it best: “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”
