{"id":102047,"date":"2024-06-13T13:23:50","date_gmt":"2024-06-13T11:23:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hiig.de\/?p=102047"},"modified":"2024-08-05T12:25:15","modified_gmt":"2024-08-05T10:25:15","slug":"no-smartphone-cringe-weirdo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hiig.de\/en\/no-smartphone-cringe-weirdo\/","title":{"rendered":"No Smartphone = Cringe Weirdo"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Smartphones boycott boredom. And boycotting boredom is neglecting an existential state of being. How about daydreaming or napping when others scroll feeds? In this blog post, author Jascha Bareis shares his experiences since getting a smartphone just this year. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since the beginning of this year I possess a smartphone next to my brick phone. After constant resistance against the creeping but tenacious power of the \u201cnormal\u201d I surrender. Not because of conviction but because of the price I have to pay on a daily basis. Ultimately, my bank forced me to do so because I was kicked out of my messaging TAN-verification process now only being done by scanning QR-codes. To change the bank until the new one would also force me to deal with QR-codes felt like a hopeless cause. Like Don Quixote raging against windmills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I believe that it is hard to comprehend how one sees the world when only living with a brick phone. There are currently loads of discussions in digital governance about issues like misinformation, the platformisation of social media, or about the power accumulation of digital gurus like Elon Musk. But all this would be nothing<\/em> without smartphones. TikTok, Instagram or X only exist because of the medium of the smartphone. It is the gatekeeper between the analogue and virtual world, catching us in the constant hybrid state of in-between with taking pictures of moments we hold dear, sharing instant emotions, chatting, liking, infinite-scrolling of the daily digests. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is not only about discriminating but being <\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

It’s not just that you get excluded without a smartphone (yes, you do), it is that you do not take part in what is taken for granted. In 2023, 68% of the world population used a smartphone. 05:01 (!) hours is the average daily time users spent with their phone<\/a>, with figures rising. In the beginning I boycotted smartphones because of the Snowden revelations in 2013. Back then I cared about privacy. But with time I realised that my motivations lied deeper, because I could observe what smartphones did to this world. And what they did to me or my social perception: From being a trend-ignorer back then to being confronted like a cringe weirdo now when GenZ’s see my old NOKIA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Name a more invasive technology that transformed the globe in the last decades – except perhaps the internet. This invasiveness is not only demonstrated in screen-time, but also by acknowledging how smartphones have changed our perception and being regarding the most basic categories of existence. There are so many worrying structural effects on media and democracy because of smartphones. But let\u2019s just have a look at individual effects: Take acceleration (stress through compression of time and events), personality (creating alter egos that need to be caressed like Tamagotchis), love (honesty and emotional responsibility \u00e0 la ghosting on Tinder), sleep (quantifying \u201cquality\u201d bed-hours), crisis (the feeling that the world has gotten worse today than in the 90s because of constantly consuming distressing and hedonistic depressive content).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is no better example to illustrate what smartphones do than introducing feelings of boredom into the picture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whenever you are be somewhere else<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Having a smartphone equals boycotting boredom. Or at least making it very hard for boredom to sneak in with reality constantly being interrupted by a penetrating app. The human being is arguably the only being on this planet that has the ability to be bored. It can reflect upon its existence. In the absence of external stimuli, one is thrown into the mental state of limbo, one drifts away, makes foolish and absurd associations by contemplating the mundane. Boredom is important because it invites a state of relaxation, daydream and idleness. It is the welcoming of thoughts without expecting anything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am convinced that people who can be bored are more at ease with themselves. But the act of simply indulging in uncoerced silence and realizing that the absurd hides at every corner has become difficult for so many people. And this says a lot about the cultural and mental constitution of our consumerist society. Cultural theories Marl Fisher once said<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Boycotting boredom is an existential challenge that has been eliminated now. If no one is bored everything is boring. At a bus stop where you previously were bored, now you immediately reach out for your phone. You cover over that terror of boredom.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fisher wrote as a critic on what he analysed as capitalist <\/em>realism<\/a>, the state of being constantly oversaturated and nervously distressed, or as he puts it \u201chedonistically depressed\u201d \u2013 without anything really changing. If you want it less theoretical, let comedian Louis C.K. explain you why he does not give a smartphone to his kids:<\/p>\n\n\n

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