I still use an old flip phone. It makes calls. It can send texts, albeit not long ones. It even has a camera, although the lens is so smudged it’s basically useless.
Would it be fun to have a phone with apps and a better camera and a connection to Cloud storage? Sure, it would. In fact, that’s exactly the problem–I’d spend all of my time on it.
Carrie Rubin tweeted this earlier today:
Never imagined this would be a headline I’d read in my medical journal one day. pic.twitter.com/7z2cMnHS8K
— Carrie Rubin (@carrie_rubin) July 10, 2018
By coincidence, I was reading Paul Graham’s 2010 essay, “The Acceleration of Addictiveness” earlier in the day, in which he says:
“Most people I know have problems with Internet addiction. We’re all trying to figure out our own customs for getting free of it. That’s why I don’t have an iPhone, for example; the last thing I want is for the Internet to follow me out into the world.”
He’s right. Our challenge now is to get away from all the technology. Like I wrote the other week, it’s getting harder and harder to avoid the ever-increasing growth rate of technology. We are getting swamped by it.
The flip phone is bad enough as it is. Recently, I read that keeping your phone in your pocket (where I’d always kept it) can cause male infertility.¹ So I started keeping my phone in a briefcase, and leaving it behind when I go for a walk or go to the gym. It was amazing how liberating this felt—rather than checking the time every couple minutes, or looking to see if I had new messages, I just figured “it can wait”. And it can.
I realize that sometimes you want to have your phone. I’m fortunate in that my gym is practically next door to where I live. If it were farther, and I wanted to take my phone, I’d take a gym bag. But I’m rapidly getting addicted to going for walks without it. If you feel unsafe walking alone without your phone, I suggest trying to find a friend or group of friends to go with you—you can have better conversation and get some exercise as well.²
When I wrote The Directorate, I ran up against the problem of how to devise some even more powerful and omni-present technology than smart phones for the characters to use. It seemed like they’d have that by 2223. But the more I thought about it, the more I started to think our current technologies dominate life to a degree that already seemed like something out of sci-fi. And at that point, I realized the really futuristic innovation might be if people would opt out of being constantly attached to their communication devices.
I’m not anti-technology by any stretch. I couldn’t do most of the stuff that I do for work and for fun without computers, game consoles and, of course, my trusty iPad. I wouldn’t have anybody to write this for if the internet didn’t connect me with wonderful people all over the world. But as with all good things, you need to have some discipline so you don’t overdo it. A smart phone just makes it that much harder for me to maintain that discipline.
Footnotes
- To be fair, the evidence on this is mixed. When I researched it, I found plenty of places saying there was “no clear link” as well. Cell phones are relatively new; it’ll probably be a while yet before the researchers come to any definite conclusions. But I’m playing it safe on this one.
- I know, there’s something to be said for solo walks, too. Believe me, I’m
amisanthropean introvert; I get it.