"A few years ago, she quit her food-justice nonprofit job to live in a yurt, and after that she went to grad school and moved into an attic, where her roommates were squirrels. Against her will, she did own an iPhone for a time. She had no choice: A university administrator explicitly told her she couldn't perform her studently duties without one. Two-factor authentication and all that."
"Most of my fellow twentysomethings want to go dumb like Lilah. I'm familiar with and sympathetic to the urge: I waste hours a day, and lose hours of sleep, to the tyranny of the scroll. I'm trapped in a shame spiral for spending so much of my precious life watching videos of complete strangers until my eyes sting and my head aches."
"But I haven't gone dumb, and the reason is simple: I'm terrified! Ditching my smartphone would be completely disorienting. It would significantly reduce my overall competence. It's deeply embarrassing-it really makes me feel like a giant baby-but I am certain that my smartphone is a part of me. I mean that literally: The panic I feel when I lose sight of it is visceral, existential, as if pieces of my physical body are missing."
Many young people are choosing to ditch smartphones in favor of simpler devices to reduce distraction, reclaim time, and limit data sharing. One young woman adopted a Wi-Fi–only dumbphone after briefly using an iPhone for university requirements and reports feeling less mentally consumed. Others feel ideological pull toward privacy and away from algorithmic feeds. Yet some users retain smartphones because giving them up produces disorientation, reduced practical competence, and acute anxiety. Smartphones function as cognitive and practical extensions that users rely on for navigation, communication, and organization, making full abandonment emotionally and functionally difficult.
Read at WIRED
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