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It's not just that "smartphones are like tobacco". It's like we're in a world where doctors tell you that smoking is good, businesses and government require you

It's not just that "smartphones are like tobacco". It's like we're in a world where doctors tell you that smoking is good, businesses and government require you to smoke, and we give free cigarettes out to children to get them hooked. Like all addictive habits and substances there's a cast-iron correlation between availability and use, so, sure, creating barriers like boxes and locks can help. But I do think articles like this have a "feelgood" disingenuous message - that you can "just say no" when you want to exercise individual choice. You still, can, but at some cost. It misses the complex psychological webs that addictive agents weave within families and societies. Drugs (digital ones too) are a social problem as much as an individual issue - as I explored in Digital Vegan [1]. We've discussed here before something as simple as my reasonable request for students to voluntarily surrender their phones during an exam. Many comments were indignant and furious. Many obsessive things can hijack the mind, even falling in love, or the rush of exercise. Historically, few except alcohol, had widespread daily availability. Tobacco was an issue as much about the advertising industry as the harms of cigarettes. Smartphones fall into a hitherto uncharted category - damaging agents that society is organising itself around so as to almost mandate their harms (EDIT: Ok automobiles are a precedent, and look where that's getting us). The effects of reduced attention, poor concentration and productivity, disorganised spending, surveillance fatigue, performance anxiety, obsessive and compulsive behaviours, accidents due to reduced situational awareness, e-waste, negative impact on relations with children, family and friends... are all externalities to a multi-billion dollar industry that is insinuating itself structurally into our way of life. My belief is that it's unnecessary, creates more harms than benefits, and is dangerous from a social resilience perspective. That's a different conversation from "put it in a pouch if you don't want to be distracted", and let's not pretend otherwise. [1] https://digitalvegan.net https://digitalvegan.net

dash2 4y ago
This seems right to me. Correspondingly, we need social solutions, like the yondr space the article talks about. It’s not enough for one person to lose their smartphone use - the whole community will benefit if we all do it together. Kids will be outside instead of indoors, which in turn makes it safer for the marginal kid to come out. Other people are available to talk to on the bus or train, which in turn lowers the temptation for me to whip out my phone. And so on. We’ve had fair trade towns and liveable towns. Maybe we should have some “low phone” towns or neighbourhoods. (Written on a smart phone on the train.)
Bakary 4y ago
The elephant in the room is that if you lead a fulfilling life, smartphone addiction is easy to cast off unlike most legal or illegal physiological drugs. I agree that the disingenuous mindset you are alluding to is a problem. The technological environment we are in has its own logic, and we can't simply ignore that in favor of a fairy-tale about personal responsibility. However, a person that is generally engaged in compelling activities will still not be drawn to the smartphone even in an environment that encourages it. In a sense, the fact that we adopted the smartphone so quickly is a testament to how unsatisfied we collectively were.

dash2 4y ago

This seems right to me. Correspondingly, we need social solutions, like the yondr space the article talks about. It’s not enough for one person to lose their smartphone use - the whole community will benefit if we all do it together. Kids will be outside instead of indoors, which in turn makes it safer for the marginal kid to come out. Other people are available to talk to on the bus or train, which in turn lowers the temptation for me to whip out my phone. And so on. We’ve had fair trade towns and liveable towns. Maybe we should have some “low phone” towns or neighbourhoods. (Written on a smart phone on the train.)

Bakary 4y ago

The elephant in the room is that if you lead a fulfilling life, smartphone addiction is easy to cast off unlike most legal or illegal physiological drugs. I agree that the disingenuous mindset you are alluding to is a problem. The technological environment we are in has its own logic, and we can't simply ignore that in favor of a fairy-tale about personal responsibility. However, a person that is generally engaged in compelling activities will still not be drawn to the smartphone even in an environment that encourages it. In a sense, the fact that we adopted the smartphone so quickly is a testament to how unsatisfied we collectively were.