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Retro Tech May - Day Two - May 2nd
You know, I consider myself a pretty terminally online person but thus far I haven't been missing my phone all that much. Sure I've been using this PC a lot but occupying myself really made me remember how life used to be before we became addicted to our phones, even to the point I'm starting to dread going back to a certain degree. And I know it's partly a matter of self control but there's absolutely no denial that social media apps and even non social media apps encourage or even push addiction onto us by creating a pretty horrifying state of society-wide FOMO. I would've expected to feel lonelier than I do but so far it's not that bad. One thing I wish I could do is join voice calls but unfortunately my setup doesn't allow me to do so (however, Discord and Bluesky are totally functional otherwise).
Today I decided to go watch Sinners. Incredible movie and I really really recommend you watch it in theatres (or get it on Bluray or DVD depending on when you're reading this) and before going out all I did was tell my friends I'll be back later once the movie is done which is something I would've done even when I had my phone but this time it felt more genuine because I had no way of being in reach until I got home. It felt less of a 'brb' and more of a 'I'm gonna live my off-screen life and I'll be back later' which is a bit of a sad reflection of how the line between real life and online has blurred. And I don't mean with having online friends - online friends are real friends and whoever says otherwise is a butthurt boomer. What I'm saying is that we don't have the mental detachment between the two the way we used to some 20 years ago back when logging in and logging out were daily activities and not what you consider going waking up and going to sleep. Tech isn't a gizmo allowing us to connect to others to improve our lives. It has become our lives.
To some people it always was their life and I'm not even gonna pretend that wasn't the case for me. See, I was always an awkward kid with few friends and my severe introversion meant I often would much rather sit in front of a screen and talk online than in person - a fact that has remained into my adulthood and will likely persist for the rest of my life. Internet was my escapism during the worst parts of my life such as my school years where I'd get reletlessly bullied and mocked for one thing or another. Internet was my escape from the cruel world I was in. But now the internet is not much different. Sure, I may not be getting bullied thankfully but the toxicity is there and I can see it front and center and with how things seem to be it will only get worse. Internet went from being my escapism to being one thing I want to escape from. Maybe not escape from fully because it still somewhat is a place of comfort for me. My dear friends mean the world to me and even moreso now that I live in a foreign country where I know very few people - even fewer I can call friends. But the internet at large has become an increasingly harder to navigate and toxic environment and it feels like everyday something you loved or liked goes through the process of enshittification, shuts down or gets gobbled up by most questionable companies. All the optimism I once had is now washed down with some dread and concern.
Concern for how much of an impact the online world can have - it can do good but it can do so much evil too. It can and has influenced people to think or feel certain things in certain ways. Do I even need to remind people about the cambridge analytica scandal? And that was close to a decade ago mind you. Recently it was found out that 'researchers' from the University of Zurich unleashed AI to post on a subreddit all about putting out viewpoints - some controversial, some not - in hopes one could change their mind to do exactly that. The purpose of their research was to see how AI could influence how we think. Now this already is problematic as is but what makes it worse is that the AI pretended to be victims of sexual abuse, minorities and even trauma councellors trying to influence real people. And sure you can say that research was ultimately not meant to do any harm but then again if you still have an account please go on Facebook and check the replies to any big article especially on politics. I've noticed obvious bot accounts trying to sneak and steal the conversation in replies just to influence people - and sure to me it's usually easy to tell who's real and who isn't based off various factors but at times it's becoming quite hard to tell real from fake even as someone who's very aware of how this works. Now imagine your parent or grandparent who's in senior age or a child/teenager who feels like they have nowhere they can belong. I'd even go as far as to theorize the reason younger Gen Z leans conservative or has a conservative's approach is specifically due to the fact they fell hook line and sinker into these narratives as children and were unaware how the world truly was like back in 2016 when Trump took office in the US for the first time.
With everything I said in mind, I seriously wish phone manufacturers would still make phones as small as the 1st gen SE. Hell, if the battery was just a bit better on the SE I would not mind daily driving one (or something slightly more powerful but still the same size) because the size makes you less likely to glue yourself to it but I can also see it as useful if you can still use the apps you want and need (which the SE has proven quite effective thus far from both this current experience, November and the few times prior that I used it for social media and discord. For light use it's the perfect device - and it has a headphone jack which can be useful in a pinch if I don't wanna use my iPod in that particular moment. It synced my account with my iTunes music so I have everything accessible out of the gate. What can I ask for other than a better world and a better internet?