This is going to be nothing new to you, because you already know that it’s true.
You know it’s true for you, and almost every person you know.
I consider myself lucky to have been born into a world in which there was no mobile technology. No portable computing devices of any kind. Computers back when I was a child were bulky, did almost nothing exciting, and had to be plugged directly into a wall.
As a child, very little in the way of excitement came via something which consumed electricity. The TV was about the only thing, but in the UK there was almost nothing of interest to watch, save for about 60 – 90 minutes of programmes on weekdays, just after school had finished, and I did not like much of that anyway.
If I wanted to be entertained I had to figure that out for myself. Bikes, friends, swimming, vinyl records… you get the idea.
Now, the entire world, all the music, all the films, all the news, in short, all-the-things are available in a device which sits in your pocket.
It’s wonderful and horrific in equal measure.
It’s wonderful because all-the-things are right there, ready to be interacted with and consumed.
It’s horrific because what hope is there for ‘ordinary’ things to measure up in terms of engagement with all-the-things. If you’re bored, the phone will fix that in a heartbeat. It’ll give you the music, the films, the contact with friends (and the wider world), and the most you have to do is expend the 1 calorie it takes to raise your arm and move your head down slightly.
How can we compete against this? The truth is we cannot, we do not, we don’t want to. We love this convenience, the ease, the access, the dopamine hit. This is where evolution brought us to.
Erm… no.
Next time you’re out and about, cast your eyes around. It’s not as bad as I’m making out, but it’s not good, and I think that it’s getting worse.
A couple of years ago I collided pretty hard with my incapacity to withdraw from my devices. I read the book Stolen Focus, and it really was a line in the sand for me.
I recognised that almost everyone, everywhere, was spending more and more time on their devices, and less and less time attending to the things which really matter.
I could sense that when the phone was not with me, something felt wrong.
Honestly, if you pay attention to this one thing, you’ll know what I mean. The next time you move from room to room, the next time you leave the house, the next time you’re not paying attention to something (anything), you’ll feel that slight sensation, that tingle of anxiety, where’s the device?
Your arm will be reaching into your pocket before you know it. A train of tragic pavlovian determinism will be in motion. You’re a passenger, not the train driver. The levers are not yours to pull. The brakes are elsewhere, and out of reach. Before you know it, the device is in your hand and normality is restored – for now. The black rectangle has done what it’s been doing for years. It’s reinforcing the behaviour you’ve learned. The device is necessary, it’s required, and life is not quite right without it. Breathe, normality is restored.
I knew that this was something that I wanted to arrest, so I got rid of my mobile device, replacing it with something from the early 1990’s.
I’m happier. You might be too, but it took a full fourteen days for my body to stop involuntarily reaching for the device. Fourteen days before my brain realised that there was nothing there. Two weeks of me looking at this stone age device and realising that I was not going to get the satisfaction I was subconsciously expecting.
After fourteen days, I never reached in my pocket again.
If you want to swim in these waters… I can tell you that the forecast is calm, warm, relaxed, but somewhat disconnected. Life will be difficult in many ways, but I prefer it.
This is not intended as a sermon, although I think it unintentionally reads like one. You do you, and if you like the device mania, you just carry on as you were. Your route to happiness was always going to be different to mine.
Leave a Reply