The flip phone vs. smartphone life
I know it's a lot to ask, but can we regress a little technology-wise?
For the next few posts, I’m gonna focus on technology. Why not?
What else has thoroughly saturated our lives more than tech?
By “tech” I mean our sedentary screen-ruled existence. But primarily I mean the little glowing thing you can no longer do without. You sleep with it, doncha? It has become an extra appendage of sorts. Or an auxiliary brain.
It gives your thumbs strange twitching powers, which in past eras would probably have gotten you diagnosed with a disorder.
You know what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the omnipotent one – the smartphone (genuflect).
As you know so well by now, this pocket-sized rectangle has amazing powers! You’re utterly mesmerized by its charms. You love it so much you’ll risk walking headfirst into a light pole or getting whacked by a car at a crosswalk.
But what are you doing in the street anyways?
With this little contraption in hand, there’s no reason to leave home. Hungry? DoorDash. Bored? Candy Crush. In need of “human connection”? Facebook, Instagram, TikTok. Entertainment? Endless streaming options. Nostalgic for The A-Team or Melrose Place? YouTube.
Your needs, your desires, your life – all neatly compacted into this slim illuminated attention leech, which gives you access to a zillion apps.
And now, AI to supercharge you to high digital heaven.
Is tech making our lives better?
Recently, a friend and I were talking about this stuff over coffee. The tech issue came up after we discussed some of our favorite movies and TV series.
I posed the following question: You must choose between…
A) The life of The Beach, the 2000 film starring Leonardo DiCaprio. This means that you’ll live with some granola types on a deserted Thai island. No smartphones, no internet. Just fishing, foraging, and hut building.
We can talk about flip phones for emergencies (shark bite). Plus, it’s our best chance of stemming the flow of digital nomad influencers who wouldn’t be able to figure out the selfie screen option.
Here’s the trailer:
“You mean living with the same people all the time?” my friend asks. “And completely isolated?”
We agreed that you can head off to Bangkok once in a while, hang out, meet new people (maybe invite a few to the island, pending approval), hit up an internet cafe to chat with folks back home, but after that, back to the island. The characters do this in the film anyways.
“OK, fine,” my friend says.
If you’re married and have kids, bring ’em along.
“OK, fine.”
You won’t be assigned to cleaning out the communal latrine. Sure, you’ll have to do some manual things like fishing or gathering coconuts, but everyone pitches in. Plus, there’s a whole field of weed at your disposal, if that’s your thing. And all the bad stuff that happens at the end of the film? Forget that. Just continual digital-free natural bliss and a small community.
“OK, fine.”
Or… you can choose:
B) Embrace the life of the 2016-2022 HBO series Westworld.
I haven’t seen it. You have to multiply yourself x10 in order to watch everything good. My friend had been talking it up. Here’s the trailer:
This is the idea behind the series: Mad scientists working for a corporate entertainment company invent a Western-themed park and populate it with biomechanical robots indistinguishable from humans. These robots or “hosts” exist to fulfill any desire of visiting humans who pay vast sums of money to let loose in the park – without consequences. The hosts are programmed not to harm the human guests.
Like in any Western film you have your typical characters: gunslingers, saloon keepers, prostitutes, bandits, lawmen.
“So you can just go in there and go nuts!” My friend (yes, a male) says excitedly. “Rob and shoot up a bank… do whatever you want!”
Unsurprisingly, he chose Westworld. I tried to nudge him towards The Beach, but he wouldn’t budge. So I got sentimental about pre-smartphone life with a personal story.
It was about 2009/10, a few years before smartphones entered the scene and hijacked our attention spans for good. I got a grant to do historical research in Venice, Italy. I couldn’t find an apartment so I ended up living in a co-ed student residence administered by a Catholic organization. Most of the students living there were from Northern Italy; a handful were from Russia, Brazil, and Eastern Europe. I was the only American.
Once a week a priest and a few administrators would stop by for mass. We would sing songs, talk scripture, and have dinner afterwards in our communal dining room. After the meal, we respectfully bid our holy superiors buonanotte. The second they left the building, we locked the door, cranked up the music (Lady Gaga was big at the time), and had a blowout party (we also did this on many other nights).
We danced, the wine flowed, and notable shenanigans ensued. One time, a few of the more mischievous residents took a ride on a vaporetto (those water buses that zip around Venice) and managed to unbolt and steal a few of the passenger seats. They made a nice addition to our lounge. I’m still not sure why the admins trusted us to manage ourselves, but in the end we were pretty good.
Here’s the point: On many nights we stayed up till dawn, and just talked. I had the best and deepest conversations of my life. A few of the students could have been in Plato’s Academy. Maybe one of them was Plato himself reincarnated – didn’t he believe in the immortality of the soul? These students had full fledged philosophical theories about life and death and weren’t afraid to broach any subject.
Are Italians chattier than other cultures? Sure.
But I like to think that we didn’t have anything beeping or buzzing in the background. For that was the era of the flip phone (circa late ’90s to 2011). You used it to actually make calls (I know, that’s incredible). You could text on it, but texting was Stone Age by today’s standards. Mainly you used it to tell friends that you’ll be 20 minutes late to this or that wine bar or piazza, or whatever. In other words, you used it to connect yourself to the real deal, and after that, you stuffed it back in your pocket and forgot about it.
By the way, flip and “dumb” phones have been making somewhat of a comeback.
On the other hand…
I can’t blame my friend for choosing Westworld. The tech-centered life is quickly becoming too irresistible. Anyone who chooses The Beach could have a serious case of FOMO.
How about a bit of both worlds? You ask, with raised brow. I’m not sure anymore. We’re pretty far down the tech rabbit hole.
Are we approaching the threshold of not having a choice between (I don’t know what to call it) an analogue/flip-phone/less-frenzied-digital life or a forever plugged-in AI-nuclear reality?
A few things are clear to me. One, apart from the fringe resurgence of flip-phoners, we haven’t figured out a way to pull back from our tech addictions. (Fer cripes sake… I’m watching Milwaukee Bucks highlights on YouTube as I simultaneously try to write this article.) I admire those who’ve instituted a digital shabbat once a week. That’s a start. But how many of us can truly pull that off?
Two, tech has made our lives more convenient in some ways and has the potential to help us achieve lofty things – like using big data and AI to predict and prevent diseases – but it has also made our lives exponentially busier. This is an emerald-encrusted fact. How many emails, messages, and (useless) notifications do you get per day?
Also, if you wait too long to respond to someone (the result of “message fatigue” – I certainly suffer from that), how anxious or guilty do you feel? You can almost sense a giant finger coming down from the cloud (the computing one) admonishing you to keep pace as our culture goes into communications warp speed.
But now I’m going full brimstone Amish on you. So I’ll end it here.
In any case, if I ever find an island like Leo’s, I’ll message you about it on Snapchat.
Terry,
I'd take the island scenario. It's something many in my age group thought about while growing up. It was part of the culture back in the day, maybe like Gulliver's travels or Gilligan's Island. But there would be no war or killings on the island. I'd get use to not having contact with the world outside. I'd need to take my dog. Further, it would require one of the following ladies to be on the island with us: Teri Garr, Natalie Wood, Jan Smithers, Donna Reed or Audrey Hepburn. One is enough. If I needed to choose between my dog, Ryker, or one of these fine ladies, I'd choose the dog. I'd create a nice living space just like I'm doing now. I'd get along with the neighbors or just stay out of their way. It would be healthy.
As for the other movie, where you get what you want whenever you want it, not for me. No happiness in that, just pleasure. No contentment in always wanting more. Even when I was younger I'd eventually feel this way but I'd want to try the everything-all-the time gig. I'd come to my senses. Everything in moderation, well, maybe not everything.
I don't have a personal relationship with my android phone. An island without internet and say, Teri Garr and Ryker is living the dream. I'd go out a happy man, even more so if I had the responsibility of caring for Ms. Garr or anyone else in their last illness.
Maybe we should replace the the whole legal system with AI? Judges, jurors, clerks, attorneys and bailiffs, make them all computers. The programmers have the real power. Maybe even the litigants could be AI. Then the human ones wouldn't have to go trial. They could watch it on cable. Good Night Mr. Mintner!
Right before reading your article, I was thinking about starting a project I call "Social Media Snail Mail," where instead of replying online, I take a screenshot of the post with the empty comment box. I print the screenshot and write my responses by hand into comment box, and and mail the paper.
It was quite serendipitous to then come across your reflections on technology and its impact on our lives. Your discussion about the balance between digital convenience and the charm of simpler times really struck a chord with me. It seems we're both contemplating how to foster genuine connections in a world dominated by screens. My project is a small step towards blending the old with the new, aiming to personalize the digital interactions that have become so impersonal. Reading your article right after having these thoughts felt like a sign that maybe it's time to explore this idea further.
Yes, I feel a bit of irony now as I type online instead of handwriting my response.