You're the creator, but I am your master
Frankenstein's Monster, Marry Shelley
I don't know when exactly it happened. There's no specific moment I can point to.
One day, I just woke up and realized I had an unhealthy relationship with my phone. I often checked or found myself scrolling through feeds, jumping from one scattered thought to another.
All while going about my usual life. My screen time was never on an extreme end (definitely below two digits), and yet I didn't feel like I was in control.
Somehow, I had become a slave to this thing. It wasn't the hardware. It was the apps.
Pitiful for a creature supposedly equipped with free will.
"Everyone is a slave to something"
Kenny Ackerman in Attack on Titans
The problem was (and is) it wasn't out of the ordinary.
It was something I witnessed every day.
Whenever I stood in a supermarket queue, people would be on their phones left and right. Similar scenes waiting for the bus, and even when meeting friends, they'd sometimes let their gaze wander to the phone on the table. Or worse, there'd be a need to turn this meeting into content.
Ugh, content.
I've come to despise the term.
No matter how much content you create, you'll never fill the abyss.
There was always something to see, always a trend to stay on top of. A feeling of missing out the second you're not up to date.
And so there is more and more entertainment and less and less joy… This morbid pursuit of enjoyment [is] spurred on by constant dissatisfaction and yet perpetually satiated.
Herman Hesse in On Small Joys
At the same time, I wasn't very balanced. Like a guitar, losing its tune after exposure to cold air. A moody mistress.
I'd feel stressed more easily. For someone who had high resilience and a good ability to stay calm, this was disturbing. I felt empty.
It's so normalized to be always online. It can feel like you're the crazy one.
But I wasn't.
The more you read about social media usage and mental health, the more you realize what's crazy is how we've been so enamored with it. The idea of turning ourselves into brands. The possibility of going viral. Short-lived fame. Quick dopamine boosts.
It might not look like one, but in many cases, it's an addiction.
When people can't help but check when they feel out of control... the anecdote about Elon Musk locking his phone into a safe and then having hotel staff break it open just to tweet - a tale of our time. Modern-day sirens.
Every drug dealer knows that addiction is a profitable business. The same way the best dealers don't get hooked on their own stuff, employees of the Big social platforms don't allow their kids and relatives to use them.
"Will power is not enough.... when there are thousands of people on the other side of the screen whose job it is to break down the self-regulation you have."
Tristan Harris
It's sold to us as a tool. As a shiny thing that allows us to keep in touch with other people and connect with new ones. The widening gap between such an ideal and the loneliness epidemic ridicules the initial visions set out.
Martin Heidegger, roughly 100 years ago, wrote about technology as something that reveals. Something that we need to master before it threatens to slip from our control.
I had been past that point of control. It is ludicrous to assume I can resist the sirens of limbic capitalism forever. A neoliberal feverdream.
I still try. What's the alternative? Giving fully into addiction-fuelled culture? Distracted by distractions of distraction, as Eliot would say?
Because what else is it we're doing?
Even crypto, which was supposed to be contrarian, has adopted the practices of limbic capitalism.
More interested in gamifying everything, fun money, come back to check every 5 minutes. Conversations start with: "How do we build the most addictive thing?" And if you don't follow this playbook, how can you compete in this rigged game?
There's no bonus points for being a moral, high-integrity project in crypto. Unfortunately.
It's like being Fabian in Kästners' novel with the same name. Even though you live by your moral compass, you might never advance as much as the others around you who never think about moral imperatives. Kan't put up with such things when you want to get rich quick.
Now. Quick.
That's the thing that keeps us hooked in large parts.
Red notifications speak to the amygdala in our brain. Wanting to be checked now. It can't wait.
A constant stream. The only way to satisfy your own cravings for validation is to put your own post in there, hoping it'll not drown instantly.
The anticipation of the reward hitting us with the dopamine.
There's a saying in German: Vorfreude ist die schönste Freude. (Anticipation is the greatest joy)
I didn't know it was rooted in brain science. Anticipation releases more dopamine than the actual reward from an activity.
A mechanism the platforms leverage to keep us hooked. The constant possibility of maybe making it...
Did you know that random reinforcement is the best way to train animals into obedience?
Skinners' pigeon sends its regards to you, fellow pigeon, hoping for the random go viral. The maybe life-changing wealth from your pumpfun coins.
I decided I couldn't live like this.
It was also a bad state to be in as a writer. If writing is a testament to one's thoughts, mine were scattered and not very original.
I'm not claiming that the idea of being chronically offline is beneficial for your being is original either. It's just better formulated, and with sources, I'd never have connected if I was still in the perpetual content loop.
Vita activa, as practiced in modernity, had to take a seat back.
Sometimes, you can fight tech with tech. I started with a distraction blocker app, a screentime tracker that completely blocks me from doing anything from 22:00 - 8:00 the following day.
But that's never enough without habits to support it.
In the end, it's far too easy to disable such apps to break into the metaphorical safe.
I needed an alternative to the quick dopamine boosts.
It took time, but I'm now in a place where I often prefer the active mode of consumption to the shallow mode of just consuming stuff for the sake of it.
I often find that after watching one movie attentively, I can't watch another. I need time to think about it, reflect, transition.
All my Sundays are spent completely off my phone and social media platforms. A few weeks ago, I deleted Instagram from my phone and logged out on other devices.
It took some time, but eventually, I realized that these activities without instant gratification can feel much more rewarding. Once you get over your initial inertia, accept the moment for what it is. Reality for what it is.
Easy come, easy go. Then, the opposite must be true.
Walking through my neighborhood with open eyes, only thoughts are ruminating. It's not always pretty or engaging.
But sometimes I spy a cat. I read about a new exhibit in the local gallery on one of the advertising columns. I smile when observing small acts of kindness between humans.
If I get bored in the queue, I internally judge others' choices, making up stories about their lives in my head. Or I try and hit up a conversation with a nice-looking granny behind me.
You never know. Once, one of them called me beautiful and kind. That was much better than any Instagram-like.
Freed from the blinders of the small screen in the pocket, such interactions have become more frequent.
I also feel my contingent for just being a nice person, letting others go before me in the queue, helping a lady up the stairs with her baby car, doing things without anyone even noticing or seeing them that just in small ways make the world around me a little better... has increased.
Maybe it's because I've much more awe in my life now.
Sometimes, as I lay on my living room floor, listening to one of my CDs, I feel immense awe. That a human being existed to write such beautiful music hundreds of years ago.. that moves me to tears, even when... or especially because I've listened to it so many times. It's deeply comforting.
And I'm grateful that I'm here, safe, warm, surrounded by such amazing works of art. Able to feel so deeply moved, the sea inside me not ravaging anymore.
Looking at the sunset, finally figuring out how to play that difficult passage in a new Lauro guitar piece, reading something I felt but couldn't put in words written by someone, discovering a new favorite painting in the museum, hearing from friends that they love the jam I cooked, drinking a hot winter tea while observing life go by outside, a new leaf on one of my plants...
There are plenty of small joys I can enjoy now that I have more time and mind space to take them in.
Ironically, the reactions from people when you tell them that you left your phone at home are similar to the reactions when you say that you're currently not drinking alcohol. (It's Germany; we have an alcohol problem).
A closing anecdote: during the public holiday this week, I met with two friends. Eventually, we walked outside, and both were on their phones. One was recording voice messages, the other was also looking at her device.
That left only me to admire the A3-sized paper of a stick figure someone had glued to a balcony. Drawn a la mode religiose apostle, the figure was holding up an open book and a sign in the form of a cross; on closer inspection, the book was just full of bicycles.
The cycle path Moses.
At the end of that day, my screentime phone app clocked in at 7 minutes total.
I didn't feel like I had missed a thing.
While you're scrolling through someone else's highlight reel, your own story is waiting to be lived.
Brian, Tiny Wisdoms
I'm not chronically offline yet, but a big part is due to work.
Crypto is, by its nature, an online-first industry.
Nevertheless, even my Desktop screen time has become more focused throughout this process. There's less mindless jumping around and more intentional use. It's more like using a tool again.. not being sucked into modes that only make me miserable.
I don't use screens while eating anymore. I read before bed or just stare into the candlelight.
It's utopic to assume I can win against systems designed to addict us. But I can put up my guard and continue finding fulfillment in the slower, more contemplative activities.
Break out of the default of passive consumption.
And I can try to create more awareness about it.
Help others discover alternatives.
Re-learn the art of lingering.
...
Thanks for reading 💚
