More exceptional bullshit from people who are afraid technology is stealing our humanity or human relationships away from us! I should be writing something else, which is of course why I feel the need to write this, so I’m going to try and keep this quick (realizing now that I’ve written that sentence more for myself than for you).
The ‘person who spends their whole life on their phone’ is a widely accepted and often unquestioned modern trope but I want to pause for a moment and ask, honestly, if anyone knows this person?
We might know people who use their phones a lot. We probably know people who spend lots of time on many devices, both for work and diversion in many situations. But do you know someone who will, to quote the article,
make dinner reservations on OpenTable; check in on Foursquare when they arrive at the restaurant; take a picture of their food to share on Instagram; post on Twitter a joke they hear during the meal; review the restaurant on Yelp; then, finally, coordinate a ride home using Uber[?]
I don’t. And I work on the internet. Every day. 90% of my friends work on the internet or in technology every day. They are programmers and project managers and personalities and CEOs and academics and I do not know one person who does this. I’m not saying this person doesn’t exist, but I am very confidently asserting that they do not exist in such a way or to such a degree that they deserve the moral outrage they constantly inspire. Show me some photos of a couple people checking their phones at the bar, sure. Now show me the hour and a half long video where they don’t talk to anyone and only stare at their devices.
So but lets say they do exist. Lets say that there is a person who lives their life tied to their phone in the near cartoonish way claimed by Technological Alarmists. I’m sure they’re out there. First and foremost, does this set of actions alone make them a scorn-worth or overly mediated person? I’m reasonably sure someone can use their phone to accomplish minor and everyday tasks but still carry on a conversation and relate to people in social settings. But lets say they can’t, that they just get sucked into their phone and they’re just gone. I’m sure that person is not fun to go to a bar with, but why, and please, someone, point me towards something I can read because I want to believe this is out there, whyyyyyyyyyyyy do we blame technology?
Televisions, as Bilton writes, did not “[start] to move into the kitchen from the living room”, we, the people who own the televisions, moved them into the kitchen from the living room with our hands and bodies because weeeee waaaaaannnnnted themmmmm to beeeeee theeeerrrreeeee TELEVISIONS DO NOT MOVE ON THEIR OWN I FEEL LIKE I’M TAKING CRAZY PILLS.
“It makes me sad that there are moments in our lives where we’re not present because we’re looking at a phone,”
“It makes me sad that there are moments in our lives where choose, consciously, to distract ourselves.”
“Every experience is being mediated and conceived around how it can be captured and augmented by our devices,”
“Many of us are preoccupied with mediating our experiences; we’re very concerned about how we might capture and augment them.”
To put a finer point on it, articles like this–in my mind–can always be retitled:
"WHY ARE SOME PEOPLE WITH MOBILE PHONES SHITTY PEOPLE?"
Because, as it turns out, some people are just shitty. And they also happen to have mobile phones.