Hi all! This is basically a semi-public journal for me right now, so please don't expect me to write well or say anything profound. I'm just trying to get started again.
I've had writer's block for many, many years now. Since about 2015. Admittedly, 2015 is about six years after I got on Facebook and started down the social media rabbithole, so I can't entirely blame Facebook. But maybe I can blame Facebook, Instagram (which started much later for me), YouTube, Twitter, BlueSky, Threads, Huffington Post, CNN online, the iPhone (which I did first get in 2014, very nearly coinciding with the beginning of my writer's block), etc., as well as some personal and familial things that happened around 2014/15.
Yes, I'm going to leave that last bit at the very generic "things," which my English teachers would hate for its vagueness. But it's important that I keep some things vague, sorry to say. I don't spill my most deeply personal things on a blog that anyone can read.
I digress. Let's get back to the topic.
In 2014, I got my first iPhone so that I could travel alone to San Francisco and St. Helena, California, in order to take part in the Hoffman Process. I wanted info I might need at my fingertips, such as directions and places to go, as well as to be able to take photos, send them to others, and share my journey on social media. The Hoffman Process was the most life-changing, life-affirming thing I've ever done for myself--EVER. It was incredible, and I have been a much better person for it, both on my life path and in my relationships.
However, isn't it funny that at the same time I did that very profound thing, I also started an addiction to smartphone life? I've never quite thought about it in these terms before, and yet the timing is there and the fact is true. Like much of us in the 2020s, I am addicted to my smartphone. I check it constantly, even when I've dumbed it down and don't have any social media, notifications, or even a web browser on it (you can turn off Safari, it turns out). I will still pick up the damn phone just to check the weather, see where my family members are at the moment (location services), check my bank balance or YNAB budget app to see if there are any updates, text a friend or read a text from a friend--many, many times a day. It gets extremely old, and I'm sick and tired of looking at that thing.
For two years, I even wore an AppleWatch. I loved it at first, keeping track of my workouts and walks and the weather (there too) and getting text notifications right on my wrist--ostensibly so I didn't have to pick up my phone, ha ha. Then some time last fall, 2025, I got so tired of looking at my watch and feeling bossed around by it that I got an old-fashioned Timex off Amazon and stopped wearing it. Months later, I still cringe when I use an electric hand dryer in public restrooms because I'm waiting for my watch to buzz that the noise decibels are dangerous. UGH! I don't want all this information any more.
I just want to live my life.
I think there's a good reason the word ANALOG seems to be everywhere in 2026. I predict the analog idea and lifestyle practices will get more and more popular for a while. It's a backlash to AI, to the costs (literal and figurative) of streaming our lives away, and to the disgust at being tracked and advertised to and literally giving all of our attention to the man behind the screen who wants to take everything from us. Or so it seems.
But the truth is, no person or thing can take everything away from us unless we let it. We are alive. We love. We chat to our neighbors (hopefully). We eat. We drink. We use the bathroom and take showers and feel the water running down our bodies. We are physical beings as well as spiritual, emotional, and mental beings. This reminds me of Maya Angelou's book, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Because we are actually still free even if we've let ourselves be imprisoned by technology for too long.
And all this is not to say we shouldn't have any technology in our lives. But can we keep it in check? Can we use it rather than be used by it?
This has become a long rant, but I'm glad I've written it. There will be more to come!
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