It really is the stupid phone ruining everything isn’t it? The stupid screens of doom and the stupidity of the world isn’t it?
Yes.
However, it's not the device itself, and not the base functionalities of the device. I remember a series from my youth - "Den korsikanske biskopen"1 - where the kids had these fantastic gadgets with video calls and other features, and I always marvelled at it.
I think the major difference was that those gizmos were something of a closed circuit, an semi-offline-ish thing: knowledge in your pocket, communication with friends. The utopistic gadgets never have the option to browse the news - an important feature to use them only when needed.
What they also didn't do is broadcasting.
The "free" broadcasting the wider internet brought is dismal. Most can't make sense of it, and it turns into vanity, into narcissism. Blogs were open diaries, were a way to, with an alter ego, share what we may not have been brave enough, or didn't have the stage to share within out normie life. Instagram, TikTok, and the rest, on the other hand, are bringing the worst out of people: not for the sake of being themselves, but to be something people can follow.
Some of the modern internet is incredible, but look at the times from before the iphone: there was less vanity, no instagram and tiktok brainrot - albeit Ren and Stimpy and Happy Tree Friends were hardcore.
These should not be in our pockets; it's a weigh that is dragging everyone down into a swamp.
(Oh, by the way: this entry was written by Peter Molnar, and originally posted on petermolnar dot net.)
