1 minute read

I’m writing this on an iPhone. Using an app I genuinely enjoy using. It’ll be published to a site run mostly for vanity. That’s all to say, I use tech.

But we all have to feeling of creep (CITE). Tech putting itself between us and life. Tech hollowing out joy. And no one can tell us why. The best answer seems to be Silicon Valley wanting data, because data means money.

Even without that, it seems like nothing happens without a device now. I can’t enter my gym without an app on my phone sending a bluetooth signal to the lock. I leave the house and receive a ping that my laptop was left behind.

Some of these notifications can be disabled, configured to only trigger in locations. But… we spend so much time catering to the needs of these apps. Maintenance is one thing. Periodically changing a car’s oil, cleaning air conditioner coils (yeah, you should do that), or removing lint from the trap a mechanically necessary to keep out lives moving. But tech demands interaction, for even the smallest tasks. Collectively, it saps time from the day. Yesterday, I had to check the spelling of “alum” because an app said it wasn’t a word. It is, but it caused just enough self-doubt I went looking it up.

I’m not one given to nostalgia. The 80s were awful. The 90s had problems. I’d take the Obama years in a heartbeat, but they were almost a good start. The 2000s were, technologically, a heyday. The internet was useful but subservient to the real world. The smartphone revolution had barely started. We still owned physical copies of software.

I am attempting to return to that time when I lived a life full of friends, books, socializing, and free of constant nagging or software designed to seize my attention. This isn’t an academic effort. I firmly believe we experience this life, and moments lost to a device are lost forever.

Any goal starts with a plan of attack.

  • Move friendships away from social media
  • Move away from apps designed to “replace your brain”
  • Prioritize open source apps, self-hosted when possible
  • Use paper and pencil
  • Treat the phone like a wallet or keys
  • Phone calls

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