“IT’LL cost more to repair than the phone’s worth,” he said cheerfully. “Cheaper to get a new one.”

“I can’t,” I said. “My life’s on that phone. If it goes, part of me dies with it.”

“No it won’t,” he assured me. “Just back it up and then sync it with the new one.” I cringed and longed for the good old days when a sink was something you washed in… In fear and trepidation I did as he suggested. To my surprise in just 10 minutes the screen on my new phone looked exactly like the old one!

I checked the photos and breathed a sigh of relief as I flicked through them.

I was transported back in time.

I found slideshow mode and sat entranced for the next hour and a half as two years of memories unfolded in 1847 pictures: trips to the beach, waiting at the airport, days out at the zoo, holidays by the pool, go-karting, sunrises, sunsets, a firework display, dog shows, Christmases and birthdays.

Some of the pictures I’d never looked at, others so repetitive I wondered if the slide show had got stuck. Did I really need 23 photos of my son attempting his first long jump?

I thought back to the days when photos came on films, each one expensively developed. I remembered the excitement of getting the films back after the holiday and opening the envelope to relive the memories.

Then sticking them in albums that would come out when we were planning the next holiday.

Now they just sit on my phone, mostly forgotten after the first flush of showing them round the dinner table has passed. I’m told you can press a few buttons, send your selected pictures off and back will come an album.

I’ve even known someone who did that. But I suspect most of us are in the same boat – deluding ourselves into thinking that we’ve captured a moment because we’ve recorded it on our phone.

The truth is though, that the moment is only really captured when we look at the picture.

The opposite is the greater danger; that we fail to live in the moment because we are so intent on capturing it in a photo.

We become voyeurs rather than participants – eavesdropping a tiny world framed through a lens rather than imbibing it fully through our senses.

Pictures can be very potent. One of my earliest memories is of my grandfather who died when I was four.

My only memory of him is playing hide and seek in the broom cupboard in the hall way of his bungalow, laughing when he popped out with the mop in his hand.

Why do I remember that moment?

Because my grandmother had captured it in a photo that she kept on her dressing table.

Maybe I’ll take fewer photos with my new phone and spend a bit longer living the moments.

And looking through the photos I’ve already taken.