Actually, you don’t need to use your phone less
Have you noticed that every third article now seems to be about some variation of “phone addiction” or “internet addiction” or (my least favorite) “dopamine addiction”?
Can we stop beating this dead horse? I saw The Social Dillema back when it came out. I wasn’t impressed then and I’m not impressed now. Everyone “knows” that phones are “addictive”, and if you’re one of the many people trying to fight that “addiction”, this article is not for you. This article is for everyone else.
This article is for people who don’t primarily use their phone for social media. I am so sick of hearing people paint time spent online as an unequivocal evil. News flash: everything is online now! For all that you people romanticize the pre-internet era, do you even remember it??
- Art is online
- Music is online
- Books are online
- Scientific information is online
- People you like more than the people in your immediate social vicinity are online
- Television is online
- Religious knowledge is online
- Games are online
So how, in this day and age, can anyone still seriously write moralizing articles telling people to get offline? What’s there? Human connection? Don’t make me laugh. The great outdoors? Yeah, more like the great heatstroke.
The internet is where everything that’s enjoyable is. Offline is where everything you need for the survival of your body is.
- Food is offline
- Exercise (that miserable torture we subject ourselves to) is offline
- Your job is offline
And that’s about it. Furthermore, the internet is the one place where you can actually control your experience. There’s no unwanted sounds or smells. No annoying people you’re forced to interact with. No one can perceive you, so you don’t have to worry about your clothes or your voice or what your body looks like. If you don’t feel constantly constrained and hampered by the reality of your appearance and presentation: good for you, I guess. Oh that we could all be so fortunate.
The internet is where freedom is and “real life” is a chore. So you can take your 1,000 words about how everyone needs to reduce their screentime and go outside or read a physical book and stuff it in your HDMI port.