A tool is something that serves us to get work done.
A pacifier is that which pacifies, meaning to reduce something to a soothing and submission state.
Our phones can either be a tool or a pacifier. Sometimes they can be both.
In this instance, mine is a tool.
What is the problem today? We’re addicted. That’s the problem.
2007 – the first ‘smart’ phone is released. I was 17 years old. I’m quite glad that I was able to experience the majority of my teenage years without it. I had an old Nokia for calls and texts.
I was 23 when I got my first iPhone. That was back in 2013. That’s when I joined the trend of this recent addiction.
When we think of addiction, we often think of drugs, alcohol or gambling.
But our relationship with our phones has become an addiction in the post-covid world. It’s happened so fast, contemporary medicine and science has not been afforded the time to do the research on what might yet happen. But it is obvious, isn’t it?
And it gets even worse with the modern age. We cannot even look at menus in cafes without having a smart phone. Accomplish half the things we need to do, like finding the definition of a word, the location of a café. The ‘oh, it’s on Google, so it must be true’ sightlessness.
So where are we at? Essentially functioning in the present time, without a phone, is not on going against the grain. It is going uphill in a pair of sandals in a mudslide. I saw people in the beginning using the old brick phones. That movement is gone. The system is geared up to work for those who have these modern phones, and against those who do not.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – extremes are easy. Balance is hard.
When the original telephone came out – it took about 100 years for the majority of the western population to own one. Smartphones have managed to do this in roughly 15 years. By the time of 2022, just about everyone had one.
Why is it frown upon to give your child cigarettes, porn or booze? Yet the phone is perfectly normal.
What am I doing differently?
Whilst at the gym, I often I listen to a podcast and try to stay in the moment. Breathing between reps and just listening to my body and the sounds of voices in my headphones.
Writers spend a lot of time making observations. Here is one – in the gym, people are often on their phones for an eternity between sets. Doom scrolling, as we have come to call it.
A few years ago, I tried an experiment where I removed social media from my phone. It stuck, and now I only use social media via my laptop at home.
It has created so much free time. And eliminated a considerable level of stress.
It has allowed me to remain consistent in the present moment.
The phone does not come to bed with me. It remains in the bedroom but across the room, on charge, face down. The bed is for sleeping and acts of intimacy.
Owing a phone is not doom and utter gloom. There are many advantages, from the minimalist point of view.
Those of us born pre the year 2000 were once told that we would never have a calculator in our pockets. Well, now we do. Having google maps is useful for long and unfamiliar drives. A portal camera to capture moments (whilst being able to directly upload itself into the cloud – no more burning discs with photos!) is a gift. Being able to video call people for free in Japan or California is a gift. Having Trello to stay on top of goals, small tasks or wider objectives is a brilliant way to get shit done.
Ergo, my phone becomes the tool it was intended to be. Not the pacifier it often risks being.
Phones can be a serious an addiction. It is kind of crazy, but at least we are finally acknowledging there is a problem.
What remains is the following question – now that we have them, how might best they serve us, instead of hindering us?