Disconnection theater
You de-googled. You deleted all your social media (except bluesky, of course). You went back to physical books. You threw out your PS5 and bought some retro/minimalist system. You replaced all your app icons with plain text. You put your phone in grayscale. You bought an antique word processor that doesn’t connect to the internet. You went back to an mp3 player, or cds, or cassettes, or vynle (or however you spell it). Hey, maybe you even took the real plunge and bought a dumb phone. And then you hopped on the internet to tell us all about your “digital detox”. 2000 “inspiring” words about how you’re “reclaiming your life” from Big Tech. And take a couple potshots at AI while you’re at it, because you know the audience just eats that up.
Give me a freaking break.
Even supposing that tech is addictive, addiction doesn’t work like that. Remember rat park? You’re the rat. You need a better cage, not less of the one thing making the current cage livable. But sure, let’s suppose screen time actually is the only thing wrong with your life. You know what you’d do if you really wanted less of it? Downgrade your internet service plan. You’d be a heck of a lot more “present in the moment” if you only got 100 minutes of cell service per month. But you don’t want that. Because you’re like an alcoholic insisting on keeping a few bottles under the sink “just in case”? Or because this digital stuff is actually useful, you just act like you hate it because everyone says you should?