Posted 08/22/2026
As the article title says. Well? Are they?
Smartphones and evil algorithms sure are good at stealing our free time, right? Facebook, YouTube and Meta must be evil spirits sent to earth to torture poor souls, yeah? Well, the free time part is sort of hyperbolic, but the latter statement about them being evil spirits might actually be true. Jury's still out on that one.
Lik dis if u cry evertim (WARNING: corny video)
Surely the solution must be a dumbphone, or at least 10,000 restrictions on apps and screen time on your phone, then. Phones are just meant for phone calls! Even texting is a questionable development in the history of cell phones!!! All these features are just evil!!! A calendar on my phone!!! Heresy!!!
I've tried my share of dumb phones and anti-phone-addiction solutions. They often do not work very well. Or at least, when they drive me off my phone, I have a collection of other things to be distracted by or "be addicted to." (There's another question to ask, when is something just a hobby/innocent time-waster and when is it an addiction?)
Let me save you some time in trying 20 different dumb phones to see if any of them can solve your concerning amount of screen time. If you're anything like me, what you need is not restrictions on your phone, but you need a calendar and things on that calendar.
I often use my phone to just fill time in between other things. To make a comparison, you know who else was "addicted" to perusing news stories, editorials, games and funny cat images in between activities? People on trains in the 1960s. We've been doing that for a while.
If you go farther back than that, were people walking the roads of ancient Rome all social butterflies who chatted up anyone they came across since they were free from all the shackles of newspapers and smart phones? Maybe I'm projecting, but something tells me that this is not the case.
(Slightly aside: maybe the issue of "phone bad" hits closer to home in many places in America because there are still people with living memory of lives lived in small towns where everyone really did stop to chat up everyone they came across, because "everyone knew each other?" I wonder how different the sentiment towards potential phone addiction is in big cities versus small towns.)
Just in my experience, whenever I'm out somewhere, with people I know, doing something interesting, I'm not on my phone. Like, not even a little tempted. Even sometimes when I'm at home I can just be staring at a tree out the window or maybe at a Weather Channel simulator.
So my shoddily made point is: phone not bad. Empty calendar bad.
If there's nothing on my calendar in a day, what am I gonna do? Nothing. So if you have something in mind you want to do, put it on your calendar!!!!! Again this is all just from my experience and temperment. If you're already a socialite with a 9999 stat in your socializing skill then get off this page noowwwwwwwwww its not for youuu
And if you lack the motivation to make a first step in such a direction, to hang with friends, read or write something, draw something, look up an interesting group or activity in your town/city, etc., then see a doctor or something. Get off reddit or discord for a bit bro.
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