Let’s fight back against smartphones

Admit it, says Ross Douthat. “You are enslaved to the internet.” If you’re like most Americans, your existence is increasingly dominated by a compulsion to check email, Twitter, Facebook and/or Instagram “with a frequency that bears no relationship to any communicative need”. Our devices and the wondrous functions they can perform are “built to addict us” – to give us little dopamine hits of outrage, ego reinforcement, arousal and distraction. In return, we sacrifice our privacy, our attention span, our focus on our families and our awareness of the natural world. “The smartphone is in the saddle, and it rides mankind.” What we need is a “social and political movement – digital temperance, if you will” – that will seek to use custom and law to restrain our use of this intoxicating technology, and enable us to take back some control. Let’s start by creating more spaces where smartphone use is strictly “taboo”, such as in restaurants and museums, or in business meetings. Let’s banish the devices from high schools and remove all computers from elementary schools. If this sounds extreme, please note that our “Silicon Valley overlords” are already sending their children to schools that ban all tech. “Only a movement can save you from the tyrant in your pocket.”