The Seductive Black Mirror

Let's not bullshit ourselves:

Unless you plan to live as a hunter-gatherer in the woods, you need to use technology in order to function in modern society.

Yes, you can still go to the bank in person and mail checks to pay your bills, but are you really gonna write letters to your family and walk across the country by foot? 

No! You're going to use your phone to call or text them, and you're going to use a car or plane to travel.

But your phone does much more than make calls. (In reality, most of you don't even use them to make calls.)

With that little rectangle in your pocket, you can:

• Apply for jobs

• Record a podcast

• Manage your banking

• Purchase anything you want

• Create a beautiful piece of art

• Listen to any song in the world

• Research any topic known to man

• Call, text, or video chat with anyone you know

But mostly, you just flick through an endless list of pictures with funny captions or softcore pornography.

That's pretty fucked up, isn't it? Listen, it definitely is your fault, but not entirely! And I don't say that to relieve you of your responsibility, but to remind you that a bunch of rich nerds have invested a lot of time and money into researching the absolute best ways to hijack and command your brain's pleasure centers. 

• Why are notifications usually red? Your brain likes that.

• Why do apps have so many cool sound effects? Your brain likes that.

• Why do companies show you the number of interactions waiting for you whenever you log in to something? Your brain likes that shit.

Mark Zuckerberg is not your friend, and he loves that you waste hours scrolling through useless bullshit on Instagram so that you can give him data to sell to his advertiser buddies.

At this point, it may surprise you to know that I'm not against social media. Sounds weird, I know! But it's awesome that you can keep up with your family who lives across the world. It's really cool to share your creative endeavors to 1000x the amount of people that you could reach before social media. It's great to get inspired by and connect with strangers who are "your people."

But this needs to be your intent. If you get onto social media, etc., without a specific goal, an obscenely rich nerd will give you a goal.

• Doomscrolling will kill your time.

• Excessive, purposeless use will lead you down regretful rabbit holes.

• You will build these habits deeper over time, exacerbating them.

• This will quite literally change your mind over time, morphing you into someone else, someone you won't like.

Not only this, but you will fry your brain's pleasure receptors by constantly indulging in the endless novelty.

When you use technology like social media, be intentional. Have a clear idea of what your goal is, accomplish it, and get out. If you keep this mindset, you can:

• You can become happier in real life.

• You can enjoy the little things in life more.

• You can have a more realistic perspective.

Yes, you need to use your phone for many things, but not for everything. Do those things, and then move on. These services and platforms are not inherently bad, but they need to be used intentionally if you want to retain control of your time.

Your phone is a tool, not a lifestyle. 

I used to be a scroller (sometimes, I still am), and I wasted a lot of time. I would also think things that I wouldn’t have thought if I had just spent more time in real life. At the end of the day, I may have had fun with the memes and shit, but all that time is gone forever, and I didn’t gain anything from those "experiences."

If you want to be more intentional, here's what you do:

• Set timers on your apps.

• Turn off non-essential notifications.

• Before using a service/app that usually distracts you, decide what your goal will be.

• Once that goal is executed, just hop off and move on.

• This needs to be practiced and adjusted as time goes on.

• Be honest with yourself about whether what you’re doing is necessary or not.

I don't know if we can ever go back to a time when people were more present in their daily lives (TV addicts notwithstanding), but we can sure as hell try.