You don't need a smartphone

An excerpt from my forthcoming pamphlet

Note: The following is an excerpt from my forthcoming illustrated pamphlet, “You don’t need a smartphone.” The pamphlet charts my own experience with technology and social media, and outlines the damage done to us by our devices, and finally offers solutions for the future—primarily the option to downgrade to a dumb phone i.e. one with limited functionality beyond texting and calling. I’m currently in discussions with a number of presses to determine how best to print and distribute the pamphlet. If you are interested in supporting or publicizing it, please reply to this email. Otherwise, stay tuned for more.

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I didn’t have any friends in high school, but I did have a phone. It was 2010 and I begged my mom to get me an iPhone for Christmas. She said no at first, but then on Christmas morning there was a little white box under the tree. Opening it was a ritual unto itself—a slow, smooth uncoupling of matte cardboard parts. The device itself was even better. I spent all day learning it. I didn’t have any contacts then, not even strangers online. I had the app store. I played skeeball with the flick of a finger. I took photos of my room and washed them in a retro filter. I sprayed digital graffiti on a digital wall. My new phone was a toy chest, a dozen gifts in one, arcade meets art supply store. I lay in bed all day, switching between apps, discovering new ones to download. Within hours, it was an addiction. I was fifteen years old. I had just gotten my first period.

Me & my bedroom at the age when I started using a smartphone

The average age at which an American child receives a smartphone is twelve. Of course, children use these devices much earlier. It is common to witness toddlers in public streaming TV shows and playing games, facilitated by their parents. Watch what happens when an adult places a device in a child’s hands: the child, previously alert and engaged with its surroundings, is suddenly silent, swept into an alternate digital plane, suspended in time, gone. You are no different.

If you were born in the nineties or later, chances are you received your first smartphone before becoming an independent adult. Your caregiver bought it for you. You didn’t have a choice, not really, because you didn’t know what it meant. You just wanted it. Everyone had one. Why not you? Chances are you still own a smartphone today—we live in a society premised on progress, which discourages downgrading. You’ve owned a smartphone for your entire adult life. You don’t know who you are without one. At this rate, you never will.

Moving through the world without technology was a privilege enjoyed by every generation of human beings up until the present day. The historical figures you reference and revere—every pre-21st century artist, writer, politician, activist—existed in a world without smartphones. Their collective output was produced without the aid of digital tools or networks. Given this, how could we possibly claim that such tools are necessary?

If you were born before the nineties, you have memories of pre-smartphone life. You may feel nostalgic for elements of this era: the absence of distraction, the ease of presence, the resulting depth of connection. I encourage you to share your experience with younger generations. You are a valuable resource to those who cannot fathom moving through life without a computer in their pocket.

A well-documented example of pre-internet networks is Nan Goldin’s NYC scene

Looking back further: intellectual salons have been around for centuries

Picture yourself in a decade. You can’t know what you’ll be wearing, where you’ll be living, how your hair will be styled, what you’ll have achieved, whether you’ll be single or partnered, healthy or sick. But you can say with certainty that, barring any radical change, you will still use a smartphone.¹ You will still struggle with boundaries, with striking a balance between digital and real-world activities. The impulse to check will be constant. You will cycle between resisting and indulging that impulse. You will feel shame when you give in. You will blame yourself for a lack of willpower and self-control. You will resolve to be better. You will never get better. Why? Because you’re not supposed to.

These machines were designed to addict you, to keep you in their thrall. Autoplay, infinite scroll, algorithmic recommendations—each of these was implemented as a means of prolonging and profiting from your time and attention.² Unprecedentedly powerful corporations have harnessed unfathomable amounts of money, and the sharpest minds of multiple generations, to engineer the perfect trap. How could you possibly blame yourself for getting caught in it?

Source: Consumer Affairs

So direct your anger outward, at the people and institutions who have robbed you of your time and serenity, and left you anxious and distracted and stressed. Get pissed off! Tell everyone about it! Tell me!³ But don’t wait for institutional change before making a change in your own life. Big tech has zero incentive to become less addictive. Their money lies in more, not less. Waiting for legislation or regulation is like waiting for your heroin dealer to die before you get clean: it diminishes your power and delays your recovery. We cannot effect radical institutional change overnight—these corporations are too powerful, too enmeshed for that. But we can effect personal change today. We can radically reclaim our lives in a matter of hours. If enough of us do this, our collective voice will be loud enough to change the system.

1. I’m referring to it as a smartphone for simplicity, but it may well take on a different form in the near future e.g. wearables, subdermal implants, retinal lenses. These are not paranoid or fantastical imaginings: the technology already exists. It’s just a matter of widescale adoption.

2. Others have written about this in greater depth and with greater insight than I can provide. See: Jaron Lanier’s Ten Arguments, Johann Hari’s Stolen Focus, Julia Bell’s Radical Attention, Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation, etc. There is a reason that so many people are now writing about the ills of technology. Listen to what they have to say. It’s not pretty.

3. Seriously, if you are considering ditching your smartphone, let me know. Leave a comment. Reply to this email. I’ll do what I can to help because I know that downgrading will change your life for the better. Use me as a resource, an ally, a sponsor. I’m here for you.