Roughly one year ago, it dawned on me that I was becoming way too sucked into the shiny world of my smartphone. While well aware that it was a systemic issue, I still did not want to just give up, give in to the dependency, become a slave to this thing that enriches feudal Big Tech Lords.
You're the creator, but I am your master Frankenstein's Monster, Marry Shelley I don't know when exactly it happened. There's no specific moment I can point to. One day, I just woke up and realized I had an unhealthy relationship with my phone.
One year later, and I've achieved what I set out to. My phone time consistently clocks below one hour a day, the amount of pictures I take has shrunk, and I'm not feeling that sense of nakedness, helplessness, inability to face the empty space of waiting, of just being in public.
I've been reading a book titled "Digital Depression" from a few years ago, which explores the impact of digital media consumption on our happiness (spoiler: not good). Happiness is a flimsy thing, and for all we know, it's pretty impossible to linger in that state forever. Nor is a direct pursuit of it likely to result in the desired state.
Nevertheless, of course, the more time you spend on platforms like Instagram (which was my poison of choice), the more you come to believe that you have to go lots of places, eat fancy foods, constantly be around good-looking people, and never forget to snap a pic of it to prove you were there.
Because "pics or it didn't happen." The joy of the moment experienced through the screen; evaluated later based on its success as "content".
Going through the world more often without my phone has opened my eyes to others' dependence, and also given me the ability to observe funny things.
It's like when you stop consuming alcohol and then realize how many people can't fathom such an existence, with reactions swinging between:
"Are you pregnant?" and "But life is hard enough and not very fun without. Therefore, you must not be fun." Starting arguments then about how Russians drink a lot of Vodka and yet have given rise to famously depressing, nihilist literature does little to refute such thinking.
(Kudos to the alcohol lobby, you've won many hearts and souls.)
Similar incredulous looks when you go meet people and then tell them you left your phone at home - like an insane person. Indeed. Very insane.
Yet, it's also freeing.
If you don't have a phone on you, there's no need to check and respond to messages. There's no need to "capture" the moment.
"Being available everywhere also means being at the mercy of others."
- Diefenbach & Ullrich in Digitale Depression
It allows you to just be.
A few days ago, I was sitting in a busy train station restaurant with a friend, and observed at least two people struggling with their tea bags. As is often the case in such places, when ordering tea, they'll bring you a cup of hot water and a pyramid tea bag, where the paper tag sticks to the actual tea bag. It's really easy to untangle that... if you use two hands.
The people in question did not. One of their hands was occupied with their phone, their eyes glued to it, which made for a funny impression as they tried to shake off that tag (unsuccessfully for a while) with one hand. Only once they moved their eyes to it - still a one-hand business, not very elegant - they managed.
I felt a weird kinship with another guy sitting in front of an empty coffee cup and, like me, just rawdogging reality. Staring straight into the void, the surroundings, maybe contemplating the purpose of life, or just counting the glasses displayed on the shelves over the bar counter. Who knows.
I have way more time to see my surroundings now. It's not always thrilling, but at least it gives me a better sense of real time passing and the small changes happening around me.
It's also opened up space to talk to random strangers I encounter in my daily life, from sales staff in the electronics market to people at a bus stop, fellow walkers I cross paths with on the fields, librarians, cashiers, and other people in supermarket queues...
None of these chats is remotely like an interaction on X. If anything, they restore a little of my faith in humanity.
Life's quite good with less FOMO, with less outsourcing of one's cognitive abilities to a device. The funny thing is, the less you interact, the less interesting the phone becomes.
My friends and family are aware that I'm not fast to respond, so they don't constantly text me. This then means when we meet, there's usually quite a bit to catch up on.
In return, when checking my phone, there are fewer notifications (ofc I also disabled all of them lol, so I do have to go directly to an app to check).
I don't condone phones; I think they're a great invention. Maps are useful, so is the ability to tell your friends in real-time when your train is once again quite late. They just should not get in the way of us actually being present with the people we love and care about. Nor in the way of us giving our brain a real brain.
Or figuring out who we actually are, without the constant behavioral conditioning by an ecosystem of engineers whose sole purpose is to extract more of us in the service of Big Capital.
Going back to the cover image, some might feel alone in the world the second they disconnect. That's just because you've not learned to see all that's around you.
You're never really alone, even when walking across empty fields. There's always something or someone, a deer behind the bushes, a woodpecker in the tree crowns, a hare quickly jumping off as you approach, the blubbering of a small stream.
If you can't be alone, how can you be with others?
By cutting down my time on the phone, I have more time to focus on being with people, on the activities I care about, and that aren't necessarily good content, the dull staring into the woods.
My social life has not worsened—quite the opposite.
The Instagram algorithm has quickly replaced me in others' feeds; barely anyone ever asked about my disappearance.
The feed does not care about me, nor does it need me.
But I do want to know who I am without it and its constant allure.
I'm still on X - mostly for work - and Farcaster, but both are increasingly becoming boring to me. It might be the state of what's displayed on there, the gambling epidemic more broadly, and/or my realization that I have better things to spend my time on.
Thanks for reading. 💚
If you haven't watched the movie Sweet Bean, it's beautiful. I highly recommend it.
Cover: The Mirror by director Andrei Tarkovsky
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Sweet Bean 2015 ?