the superiority complex of the screen minimalist
During my decoupling from almost all online services and apps I had (2016-2018), I was prone to looking at the people around me with concern and judgment about their digital consumption.
It was the typical sort of short-term enlightenment phase you get when you realize something big and change your life around. When you’re a hammer, everything looks like a nail, and because I was so freshly into deleting my social media and installing website/app blockers on my devices, every person on their phone in public was a consumerist victim addicted to the screen in my eyes. The prevalence of that view made it feel like a national emergency, a contagious disease ruining us all.
Smugly, I looked around and thought: Wow, thank god I’m not a zombie anymore! I’m totally in control of my own thoughts and consumer behavior! I’m self-aware and no longer have my attention hijacked! As these people are on their phones endlessly scrolling, I’m reading a non-fiction physical book, which is so much more worthwhile and healthier for my brain and attention span!
I still don’t have social media accounts, and I don’t even need any blockers anymore. My phone isn’t tempting me and neither is my laptop. I’m okay with my screentime.
Since then, I have mellowed out. For one, it became the new normal, and also, I recognized that I made up stories in my head to feel superior to others. The truth is: By looking around, I don’t actually know what anyone else is doing. It’s just a baseless assumption in alignment with my own worldview, a self-serving one at that.
While looking at their phone or tablet, others might be reading an e-book, studying, messaging a friend, doing their shopping list, journaling, making an appointment, searching for recipes, looking at maps or checking off a to-do list. While having their headphones in, they might be listening to a guided meditation, an audiobook or voice messages by friends, or just use noise-cancelling while nothing is playing, or use it as a deterrent for others to leave them alone. I can’t know that.
And even if they aren’t, and they’re playing Subway Surfer or scrolling on TikTok while listening to music, I don’t care anymore. They don’t owe me the opposite, and they aren’t out in public to impress my opinionated ass. Why should they engage with only what I personally think is good?
I will probably see about 10 minutes of this person’s life before never (knowingly) seeing them again, and it’s not nearly enough time to get an idea of their digital habits. Seeing them as someone who can’t sit with their own thoughts, a sort of addict, is an unfair view.
In the end, the places where I noticed the most glued-to-the-phone-behavior were the most boring places known to man. What did I expect looking around in doctor’s waiting rooms and public transport? And why did I have to compare myself to them and come out on top? Why did I feel like rawdogging these moments with no entertainment would earn me a medal?
Ohhh my god you didn’t check your phone so far today? Should we tell everyone? Should we throw a party? Should we invite Cal Newport?1
Related: It may not just be the damn phone.
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