Rejoice! For by the end of 2026, 4G and 5G mobile coverage is expected across the whole London underground network. After months of delays and setbacks, 121 subterranean tube stations will be dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century, joining Paris and Berlin in perma-connectivity bliss. But should we really be so happy about the rollout?
Going deep underground was once a way of escaping the incessant communications of this exhausting modern life. Emails to respond to? WhatsApp messages piling up? The tube used to be one of the last remaining bastions of resistance against the constant expectation to do. To optimise. A simpler place where you could justifiably and believably ignore messages and reply later with a “sorry, I was on the tube”.
I see the economic arguments for being better connected. Of course it’s good for business for us to be “on” all the time. And yes, I’ll admit, it is stressful when you get stuck in a tunnel and can’t let your boss know you’re running late. The rollout will also host the new Emergency Services Network (ESN), which will allow first responders to access vital information in an emergency – you can’t argue with that. And, credit where credit is due, the project inarguably represents a remarkable feat of engineering, involving 700 staff and the rollout of hundreds of miles of fibre cabling in the tube’s ancient tunnels.
But on an individual level, what good comes from permanent online connectedness? Studies have shown it’s really bad for our health. Perhaps you’ll be able to leave the office earlier if you’ve got ahead with your work during your morning commute. But it horrifies me that if clients want an instant response, or a bad boss is contacting you out of hours, there’ll soon be nowhere to plausibly hide. I know, I know, lots of people are already living in this brave new world. The tube has 60% connectivity as it is, and lots of commuters who use train networks outside London are used to tethering to a phone or connecting to the train wifi to get ahead on work during their journey. But wasn’t our inability to do the same once a huge point in Londoners’ favour? Yes, the tube is a sweaty sardine can but at least you could lose yourself in a (pre-downloaded) podcast or a book for half an hour, instead of fielding Slack messages from your colleagues.
I can’t understand why we aren’t all more perturbed by this frightening normalisation of being always on. We should be railing against it with all our might. Why must every minute of our time be accounted for? Boredom and daydreaming are good for our brains – we should all be doing more of that.
I’m aware that I sound like a luddite. And I know lots of people find it exceedingly useful being able to work through their to-do list in those idle minutes between leaving the house and arriving somewhere else. But it’s becoming abundantly clear with every new alarmist study that we need saving from ourselves when it comes to our phone addiction. After a day at work and one too many soul-sucking conversations with colleagues, who has the self-discipline not to doom scroll all the way down the Central line? Not me, that’s for sure.
And people can’t be trusted to use this newfound perma-connectivity politely either. My colleague Dan Hancox has recently been bemoaning the “astonishing number of grown adults who think it’s OK to surf the slopwave without headphones” – a phenomenon that has become noticeably and obnoxiously worse since the tube got internet. And don’t get me started on the number of people talking on the phone on loudspeaker these days. Must we all be made to listen to everyone’s personal conversations on the tube now too? Is this the future?
Give it up, I hear you say. That ship has already sailed. Maybe. But I don’t have to be pleased about it.
Lucy Pasha-Robinson is a Guardian assistant Opinion editor
