i fucking hate my phone
i hate the feeling of being at a really cool place or watching a show or event and having to decide between being present and taking it in or taking a picture to have the memory. while i’m taking the picture, i’m regretting not being present. when i’m being present, i’m regretting not having the picture which i will be able to look back on fondly later. i hate the way i feel stupid when i try to do both and hold my phone to the side of my vision while trying to keep the frame steady without looking at it.
i hate the way that i use it all the time. i hate that it’s the first thing i touch when i wake up and the last thing i touch before i go to bed. i hate how it sends me notifications all the time. but even without them i check it almost unconsciously the second life pauses for even a second around me. i hate when i check my phone because i swear i felt it buzz in my pocket but no notification ever actually came.
i hate scrolling. i hate finding myself cycling through the same few apps looking for something to entertain me and not finding anything but still scrolling and switching, scrolling and switching. i hate that sometimes scrolling is actually useful and leads me to something really interesting and how i use that to justify my continual use.
i hate that i can’t disable the problematic parts of apps while keeping the parts i like.
and most of all i hate that there’s nothing i can do about it. humans have coevolved to the point that the phone, an organ not unlike your eyes or ears, is essentially a requirement to effectively interact with society. it is your personal interface with the cloud that you cannot simply cut off, no different than how ripping off your ears would not be a good idea, even if you don’t like many of the sounds you have to hear.
all i want is for it to go away and i know it’s soon. ai (or the things it will soon invent/enable) will kill the phone. maybe it’s glasses, maybe it’s something else, honestly i don’t really care.
it’s going to happen and i can’t wait for that day.