Offlining
Gen Z and millennials are tired of being available 24/7. After spending almost a lifetime with a cellphone in their pocket, they are realizing how freeing it can be to unshackle themselves from their device’s undeniable aura. Aware of its hypnotic effect and Pavlovian conditioning, these younger generations have learned to fight the haunting whispers of their phone—however, it’s taken nearly their entire lifetime to do so.
Like building up an immunity to poison, wrenching yourself away from your mobile device takes time and extreme effort, but the farther away from your likes, followers, and buzzing notifications you go, the more you realize the addictive effect of smartphone technology. Joe Birch, a technology analyst at Samsung’s research firm, says, “there is evidence of [Gen Z] modifying their smartphone behaviour, with concerns around the negative impacts of being constantly digitally connected… Three in five Gen-Zers say they’d like to be less connected to the digital world.” Obsessed with the nostalgic ‘90s Nokia brickphones, Gen Z has prompted a rise in “dumbphones,” or cellular devices that only send SMS text messages and receive calls—a breath of fresh air for young people who have spent their entire lives inundated by social media. Tapper continues,“The ‘Boring Phone’ is part of a new dumbphone boom, built on the suspicion of Gen Z towards the data and attention-harvesting technologies they have grown up with.”
Younger generations have spent a lifetime battling their phone’s algorithm, fortifying their resolve against the most addictive technology mankind has ever created, but the Boomer generation is just getting started. Boomers are still new to this technology, and have no grasp of the benefits of offlining, making them a prime new target for mega-tech, desperate to retain as many users as possible.
Social Dopamine
Boomers are always on their phones, stuck in a lobotomized-like state at the hands of their devices, unaware of the passing hours as they scroll through cute animal reposts, local neighborhood groups, social media “doctor” pages, and extravagant clickbait. Because without decades of training to combat the power of algorithm hypnosis, Boomers fall victim to every trick in the book—addicted to their phones, while losing touch with the world in real-time. “Your phone is designed to be addictive,” says Thomas Franklin, a psychiatrist from Psychology Today. “Multibillion-dollar corporations have used all its features to play your brain like the instrument it is and give you little shots of dopamine all day long like a rat in an experiment.”
Trusting their phones wholeheartedly, Boomers gaslight themselves into believing that cellphones are just a tool to keep people connected and informed. While that’s partially true, the darker underbelly of devices reveals that this “tool” is far more complex than a hammer waiting around in your tool shed for a nail to bash. A real “tool” just sits there until it’s utilized, but a phone slips into your unconscious mind, summons you to spend more time on their apps, and, ultimately, make 1%-er tech moguls richer as they mine your screen time, force feed you targeted ads, and train your brain like a lab rat to stay perpetually online. Dr. Anna Lembke, author of Dopamine Nation, has spent a lifetime studying human nature and the psychology of addiction. She claims, “we are now all addicts to a degree,” calling the smartphone a “modern-day hypodermic needle.” We turn to the phone for quick dopamine hits, seeking attention, validation, and distraction with each swipe, scroll, and like.
Unbeknownst to Boomers, who are still relatively infantile in the world of cellular devices, they’re steeping their brains in a dopamine dip each time they unlock their device. Microdosing mood-boosts with each scroll and click, they’re like a casino granny bashing the $0.01 button on the penny-slots with the hopes of winning a $5 jackpot. Except, by design, there’s no reward for phone users, leaving us with reinforced behavioral patterns and intrinsically empty doomscrolling. Jamie Waters, a lifestyle analyst from The Guardian, says, "because the bounty of high-octane stimuli enables us to instantly boost our mood—something previous generations couldn’t do to the same degree—we’re under the impression we can fully control when we feel joy. In reality, our drip-fed, tech-fuelled bliss is fleeting, and often less than blissful.”
Throwing Away the Digital Pacifier
Tristan Harris, former design ethicist at Google, says, “we’re training and conditioning a whole generation of people that when we are uncomfortable or lonely or uncertain or afraid, we have a digital pacifier for ourselves.” Like toddlers, tossing away a source of faux-comfort, young people are taking a stand against social media. Even as Boomers turn into social media zombies, Gen Z is calling out big tech with a full reversal, rejecting the technology that once held them captive. Watching digital rot take root in the older generations—who are more vulnerable to technological charms—makes Gen Z’s move away from technology a more obvious choice. Tapper says, “dull devices are now cool… This move to digital minimalism is also seen in Gen Z’s declining use of social media. They are the only generation whose time on social media has fallen since 2021.”
Tired of being lab rats, young people set a great example for older generations, turning the tables on the tired Momism reasoning of the 2000s, “It’s because you’re always on that dang phone!” Breaking the cycle of cellular zombification is not an easy task, but staying aware of your phone’s effect on your psyche is the first step in realizing phones are far from benign.
Via u/southworks
Cutting the Phone Cord
Cellphones are obviously still useful in the modern world, and sometimes a must. So, while we’ll all still spend a little time every day scrolling through silly cat videos and liking our friend’s posts online, we must remain aware of the mental effect of scrolling and cellular addiction. Actively combatting the phone lobotomy is the only way to keep big tech out of our heads and, more importantly, out of our family dinners.
Because nobody likes to sit around the table for a nice meal with their loved ones, only to have their real life stories outshone by a two-year-old funny animal video reposted to a “Class of ‘78” Facebook page.