It is 10pm on a cold Friday and I am standing in a phonebox that smells of pee, trying to persuade a barman to track down my friends. “Can't you do a shout-out?” I ask. “Or maybe look for them?” The friends I'm supposed to meet are on a pub crawl in Central London and we haven't made any firm arrangements. “They're about 26,” I yell over the music. “And, er, probably wearing suits.” The barman disappears for a few minutes. Then: “Hey, I think I've found them!” A voice comes on the line. “Er, hi. This is Richard. Who is this?” Wrong person. I hang up.

Welcome to life in the 21st century without a mobile phone. A recent study has discovered that we are so dependent on our phones that when we find ourselves without them, discover that the battery has run out or are forced to switch them off, 53 per cent of us experience acute anxiety and stress - a “condition” so prevalent that it has even been given a name, nomophobia.

But perhaps our obsession is misguided. Sure, mobiles seem practical, but back in the old days we just planned better, didn't we? People were late less often and didn't expect you always to be contactable. A life without a mobile might even be better, more organised and relaxing. But could a nomophobic survive, let alone enjoy, a week without one?

Monday: Barely have I agreed to abandon my phone for a week than it beeps loudly. I have a text. But officially I no longer have a mobile, so reluctantly I turn it off. I spend all afternoon wondering what crucial information the message contains.

I miss my evening train and will now be late for dinner out with my flatmate. I hate being late. Still, there's nothing I can do about it. A strange calm washes over me. During dinner, I realise with horror how many times I feel an itch to check my (absent) phone. “I know what you mean,” says my flatmate, as her own phone sits tantalisingly on the table in front of me. “I almost took mine to the loo with me just now to look at old texts. That's a bit sad, isn't it?”

Tuesday: On the way home I realise that I must ring my mother. I always speak to my parents when I am on the move; they complain that they never speak to me without the accompanying roar of traffic. So, back home, I settle down on the landline and chat, undisrupted, for half an hour. I make a cup of tea and make a couple more overdue catch-up calls. It's certainly more relaxing focusing on a conversation this way. But as I drift off to sleep, I am haunted by phantom text beeps.

Wednesday: I need to make a doctor's appointment before I leave for work, but the surgery is engaged for 30 minutes. I get through eventually, but am late for work. This evening I am going climbing with friends. I rush to be home between 7 and 7.20 to wait for an arranged call from a friend who may have to cancel because of work. His train is delayed, he calls late and we arrive late at the climbing centre.

Thursday: As I set off to a friend's house from work, I realise how calming it is to be incommunicado on occasion. This hour is mine. No one can disturb it, and it provides a brief period of respite between work and wherever I'm going afterwards. Until, that is, I realise that I'm not sure of my friend's address and get lost because I can't just ring and ask her.

Friday: Tonight is when you find me in that phonebox. I have just been to the theatre, where I spent ten minutes panicking in the crowded foyer in case I missed my friend, Alice, since we have forgotten to say just where we would meet. I have now called two bars, which has cost me close to £5, including the calls to directory inquiries. Before anyone had mobiles, this is what you might have done if you really, really wanted to reach someone who was out on the town and you didn't know exactly where they were. The first barman thinks I am mad. The second brings me the wrong person. And so Alice and I head to Central London, where we wander from bar to bar in the hope that we will find our friends. Fortunately, we do.

Saturday: This evening I head to a party at a bar in South London with a few friends. There is a vague plan that another friend will join us, but we keep on missing each other. By the time I leave the house we still haven't spoken so she ends up not coming. At the end of the evening I have to leave in a rush. The next day one friend is annoyed because we didn't say goodbye and she didn't know where I had gone and couldn't ring me. I get the impression that this is an experiment that everyone else is very keen to be over. So am I.

Monday morning, 12.01: At last! I switch on my phone, eager to see what vital/hilarious text messages I have been sent. There are none, unless you count “Hey dude, what's up?” as a key exchange of information. But I am no longer fooled by the supposed benefits of a phoneless existence. The reality is that you end up waiting in the cold, being stood up and letting people down.

I admit it: my name is Francesca, and I am a nomophobic. And as for all the anxiety and stress that we addicts are supposed to suffer when deprived of our drug, the answer is simple. I will just keep my phone with me at all times. And I won't turn it off. Ever.

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