Is the phone the problem?
We tend to paint smartphones with a broad brush, especially when we’re criticizing them. “It’s those damn phones.”
I see this as a straw man. My iPhone might be the most useful thing that I own. It’s the digital Swiss Army Knife. What else provides a camera, GPS, digital notebook, radio, phone, and other useful tools in a form factor that fits in your pocket and weighs just a few pounds?
The real problem is the small number of applications that have reached an unprecedented level of distribution and usage. I don't even need to name them. We all know.
I can sympathize with people who argue that we should just ditch the smartphone as a whole. You can’t resist armies of world-class engineers working day and night to capture and retain your attention, so don’t even try. Keep yourself as far away as possible. But that’s a bit like having an infection in your foot and lopping off your leg from the hip down. Let's not panic and do something net negative.
I’ve gone through phases where I make my phone as boring as possible by removing all the distracting apps, changing the color palette, etc. Guess what? It worked. The smartphone is not inherently an entertainment device. You just have to get rid of the few culprits behind the endless entertainment.
Smartphone makers should do all they can to take the side of the consumer against the brainrot digital distraction apps and give us ways of keeping these apps off our devices permanently, if we so choose.
Last updated: 4 hours, 29 minutes ago