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NYT Reporter 'Ditched My Phone and Unbroke My Brain' (msn.com)
"It's an unnerving sensation, being alone with your thoughts in the year 2019," writes New York Times technology columnist Kevin Roose, in an article shared by DogDude. "I don't love referring to what we have as an 'addiction.' That seems too sterile and clinical to describe what's happening to our brains in the smartphone era."
We might someday evolve the correct biological hardware to live in harmony with portable supercomputers that satisfy our every need and connect us to infinite amounts of stimulation. But for most of us, it hasn't happened yet... [S]ometime last year, I crossed the invisible line into problem territory. My symptoms were all the typical ones: I found myself incapable of reading books, watching full-length movies or having long uninterrupted conversations. Social media made me angry and anxious, and even the digital spaces I once found soothing (group texts, podcasts, YouTube k-holes) weren't helping...
Mostly, I became aware of how profoundly uncomfortable I am with stillness. For years, I've used my phone every time I've had a spare moment in an elevator or a boring meeting. I listen to podcasts and write emails on the subway. I watch YouTube videos while folding laundry. I even use an app to pretend to meditate. If I was going to repair my brain, I needed to practice doing nothing.
Another science journalist helped him through "phone rehab," and "now, the physical world excites me, too -- the one that has room for boredom, idle hands and space for thinking." After a final 48 hour digital detox, "I also felt twinges of anger -- at myself, for missing out on this feeling of restorative boredom for so many years; at the engineers in Silicon Valley who spend their days profitably exploiting our cognitive weaknesses; at the entire phone-industrial complex that has convinced us that a six-inch glass-and-steel rectangle is the ideal conduit for worldly experiences...
"Steve Jobs wasn't exaggerating when he described the iPhone as a kind of magical object, and it's truly wild that in the span of a few years, we've managed to turn these amazing talismanic tools into stress-inducing albatrosses. It's as if scientists had invented a pill that gave us the ability to fly, only to find out that it also gave us dementia."
Mostly, I became aware of how profoundly uncomfortable I am with stillness. For years, I've used my phone every time I've had a spare moment in an elevator or a boring meeting. I listen to podcasts and write emails on the subway. I watch YouTube videos while folding laundry. I even use an app to pretend to meditate. If I was going to repair my brain, I needed to practice doing nothing.
Another science journalist helped him through "phone rehab," and "now, the physical world excites me, too -- the one that has room for boredom, idle hands and space for thinking." After a final 48 hour digital detox, "I also felt twinges of anger -- at myself, for missing out on this feeling of restorative boredom for so many years; at the engineers in Silicon Valley who spend their days profitably exploiting our cognitive weaknesses; at the entire phone-industrial complex that has convinced us that a six-inch glass-and-steel rectangle is the ideal conduit for worldly experiences...
"Steve Jobs wasn't exaggerating when he described the iPhone as a kind of magical object, and it's truly wild that in the span of a few years, we've managed to turn these amazing talismanic tools into stress-inducing albatrosses. It's as if scientists had invented a pill that gave us the ability to fly, only to find out that it also gave us dementia."
For others of us, it happened a long time ago. I grew up computing, I met my first girlfriend in a BBS chat way way back in 1993 or so, and the internets are my happy place. Maybe that's the difference?
I find I can still do all of those things happily, but the people around me can't manage any of them. And I'm plugged in more or less constantly.
You're using them wrong. Stop watching stuff that pisses you off.
That would drive me nuts. My memory has always been craptacular, and I'd forget what I wanted to look up while I was thinking about "what else".
How about just selectively omitting the outrage porn that seems to be the big problem for most people? Drop Vice first, bunch of sensationalist wankers. Gawker used to be the big problem, but then HULKAMANIA RULED.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Happy medium ... keep the phone as a communication device, ditch the data plan. Meaning that "going online" is no longer effortless -- outside of your usual spaces (work, school, home), you have to make an effort to seek out public WiFi and connect to it.
I can already predict the defensive hue and cry against this reporter's message.
Are all NYT reporters this full of themselves? Or is this particular person just pretending because it makes for a more dramatic essay?
TFA author suffers from an issue which I've seen afflict a lot of the Millennial generation - blaming everyone and everything for their problems except themselves. He blames social media, the phone, the engineers who built it, etc.
The problem is you. Lots of us manage balanced lives using our electronic gadgets without being obsessively dependent on them. I forgot to bring my phone with me to work and shopping yesterday, and didn't have access to it until about 8pm. It was a little inconvenient, but no big deal. If you're unable to do that and are going into what are basically withdrawal symptoms when you disconnect, *you* have a problem. And the first step to recovery is admitting that you have a problem. Only after you've identified the true source of your problem, is recovery possible. As long as you keep blaming other people and other things instead of yourself, you won't be addressing the true cause of the problem, so you'll never be able to resolve it.
Exactly. Do you carry your phone around when you're at home? Is it always by your side? If so, you are the problem...not the phone.
Just another day in Paradise
"It's an unnerving sensation, being alone with your thoughts in the year 2019," writes New York Times technology columnist Kevin RooseM
No, it's not...unless you don't have a brain that can amuse or entertain itself.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Old people tend to ignor it as they don't usually fully appreciate what it is.
Or maybe we see it for exactly what it is, which explains our lack of interest.
By and large I see social media as a relatively uninteresting, shallow, and not very well done. Honestly, I just don't see the point. (??)
However, if that's your thing, I say bravo to you and carry on. Whatever floats your boat.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Exactly. Do you carry your phone around when you're at home? Is it always by your side? If so, you are the problem...not the phone.
^^^^This this this.
That's always been kind of a secret litmus test for me- does a person carry their phone on them everywhere all the time, even at home? Is it always always always in reach?
If so, that tells me something about them, and it's almost never a positive thing.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
The "socially awkward nerd" stereotype is very much liked by the media because it's profitable, but real engineers are actually very good socially-wise. They're fun to hang around with, they have many interests and enjoy sports and social life. Real nerds are a nightmare: self-centered, obsessed, asocial and loud with a chip on their shoulder the size of mount Everest. Those lovable goofy geniuses you see on TV are just a fantasy.
"By and large I see social media as a relatively uninteresting, shallow, and not very well done."
So, exactly like most face to face interaction!
I suppose my definition could apply to me as well, at least according to my first wife.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Yep. I'm always blown away by people who lie awake in bed messing around on their phone until they pass out way too late, only to wake up and lie there messing around on their phone until they're late getting up too. (See the twitter in chief for a great example.)
If your phone and social media is the first and last thing you see every day while in bed, yeah, you personally have a god damn problem.
And if adults have this issue, their kids likely have no chance. If you can't put your phone down for any length of time, there's no way you'll be able to get your kids to. You're teaching them that the imaginary online world is far more important than the real world around them.
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
Funny, because I ditched the NYT and it "Unbroke my brain".