https://archive.ph/OLGDp paywall
At first I was like wtf is with this author. I’m millenial/gen z and even I remember what we did. TV, books, and calling your friends on your wired phone attached to the wall.
But as I read the article, I kinda get it. There was a ton of down time and boredom. However, I disagree that the nothingness was this horrible thing. I think the “nothing ever happens” is what our brains handle much better than “there’s too much happening.”
Our brains literally can’t process the firehose of information streaming into our eyeballs 24/7 365. It starts to go in your eyes and right out your ears. My memory is shit now. I’m forgetting important stuff because it keeps getting deleted to make room for more garbage data like endless dank memes and posts. I think the nothingness, along with REM sleep (which is also disrupted by screens), is what’s needed to help process and therefore retain new information.
I’m trying to spend less time on screens because it feels like dementia and it’s freaking me out.
I remember reading an article saying the creativity that comes only after you experience profound boredom is what we’ve lost. We have so many options so easily available, the next dopamine hit is only ever minutes away a lot of people never need to make it past superficial boredom
I was, and still am, fine with my own thoughts. I intentionally go places without my phone that I know I’ll be standing around waiting. Bus stop to pick up my kid, restaurant to grab lunch, quick trip to the store. It’s nice not having the option to distract myself with it and the feeling of being entirely disconnected knowing if “something terrible happened” I wouldn’t be able to reach anyone instantly is a lot more calming than it sounds.
Meditated / mindfulness more. Listened to radio/music more. Collected physical media to play in cars or tv players. Physical books! For me, smartphones have only filled in small gaps while waiting, when I retire looking forward to getting rid of it. Personal social media has never worked for me, I can’t really create new connections this way. It’s all just temporary garbage fluff!
It’s interesting, mindfulness and meditation really weren’t that popular, at least in a mainstream way, before smartphones got popular. I feel like a big part of why it blew up was pretty much because people were feeling overwhelmed with modern multitasking and needed an outlet.
I was smaller but I had a glimpse of the life before smartphones. The generation before any kind of widespread telephony is dying out but since then, people called each other a lot, like a lot a lot. They watched TV in the mornings and evenings, ran errands, read the paper, went to bars, hobby clubs and nightclubs, cafes. We still do that now, but you have to make a concious effort to avoid using a computer or smartphone.
So many passes, cards and memberships are now digital, I kind of miss the feel of carrying plastic and paper cards.
We also had books, and we still do.
Just yesterday, on a bus, among a sea of people on their smartphones and a kid with a tablet, I saw a young lady reading a book.
Some people still watch TV in the mornings and evenings, during breakfast and dinner.
Reading the paper is probably what’s mostly been replaced by smartphones.
