I spoke on the news last night about "smartphone addiction," and I made the point that we should be more concerned with "smartphone necessity..." How can we put the onus on individual users for using their phones too much when so much of the modern world is only available there?
Great column, as always. My favorite Substack by far
"There are too many good passages to pull, but Read argues that what lurks behind our compulsion for more social screen time is ultimately "a latent instinct toward … destruction [and] self-obliteration.""
People are trying to win the social game by being on the phone and thus feeling in control - that's the compulsion. The tech companies are trying to win the game by controlling the person on the phone and emptying their pockets. People feel bad because they're competing against giants and rather obviously losing, which feels like shit. Who wants to feel like they've won the game by collecting a bunch of likes and then turn around seen how, in the process, the tech companies have cleaned the player's clock.
I've been practicing being online without being ONLINE for decades and it amounts to holding the internet at arm's length and accepting small amounts of quickly repairable damage, and if need be, bailing out for a time on the regular.
All of that is bad enough without getting into the problem that meatspace is full of people who might (probably) put you off enough to avoid them, and then you go online and all those fuckers are *right* *there*.
I feel "logging off" is so curious a mental space because I've done it in so many different forms over the years. I "logged off" Facebook when I graduated college, I didn't delete the account but I stopped posting and most people I liked stopped posting so I only check when my mom does. I deleted Instagram for years only to come back on a very personal account only for my "real friends", intentionally leaving out people who I do like but know I don't wanna see their content. The fact social media like so many internet things is a collection of all the likes, etc that one has done makes the desire to log off feel so real to me. In high school I realized I probably didn't wanna be "Friends" with someone I had one class with in 9th grade "forever" and lol I was right just would take another decade to realize just how much.
I spoke on the news last night about "smartphone addiction," and I made the point that we should be more concerned with "smartphone necessity..." How can we put the onus on individual users for using their phones too much when so much of the modern world is only available there?
Great column, as always. My favorite Substack by far
Good stuff!
"There are too many good passages to pull, but Read argues that what lurks behind our compulsion for more social screen time is ultimately "a latent instinct toward … destruction [and] self-obliteration.""
People are trying to win the social game by being on the phone and thus feeling in control - that's the compulsion. The tech companies are trying to win the game by controlling the person on the phone and emptying their pockets. People feel bad because they're competing against giants and rather obviously losing, which feels like shit. Who wants to feel like they've won the game by collecting a bunch of likes and then turn around seen how, in the process, the tech companies have cleaned the player's clock.
I've been practicing being online without being ONLINE for decades and it amounts to holding the internet at arm's length and accepting small amounts of quickly repairable damage, and if need be, bailing out for a time on the regular.
All of that is bad enough without getting into the problem that meatspace is full of people who might (probably) put you off enough to avoid them, and then you go online and all those fuckers are *right* *there*.
elm
like old dudes leaving a comment on your blog
I feel "logging off" is so curious a mental space because I've done it in so many different forms over the years. I "logged off" Facebook when I graduated college, I didn't delete the account but I stopped posting and most people I liked stopped posting so I only check when my mom does. I deleted Instagram for years only to come back on a very personal account only for my "real friends", intentionally leaving out people who I do like but know I don't wanna see their content. The fact social media like so many internet things is a collection of all the likes, etc that one has done makes the desire to log off feel so real to me. In high school I realized I probably didn't wanna be "Friends" with someone I had one class with in 9th grade "forever" and lol I was right just would take another decade to realize just how much.
This was a marvelous essay, thank you so much for writing it - it was something I needed to read today.