Vlad Savov1 over at The Verge has another of those annoying articles in which he complains that smart phones are too distracting and considers dropping back to a “dumb phone.” I’ve seen a lot of articles like this lately and, really, they’re very tiresome.
If you think Twitter is too distracting, GET THE HELL OFF OF TWITTER. If you lack the will power to stop checking it, delete your account. Same with Facebook and all the rest of it. But please, I beg you, stop trying to drag the rest of us into your problems. Most of us are very happy with our phones and wouldn’t consider dumping them. I’m not on Twitter or Facebook but I use my iPhone all the time and it’s almost never to call someone. Don Knuth famously gave up email but he didn’t walk away from computers; he just stopped using email.
The New Luddites are always complaining about technology even as they use that technology to do the complaining. The first few articles on smart phones being distracting might have been marginally interesting as a study of peoples’ workflows and preferences but now they’re just old Mrs. Crabapple from down the street complaining that the kids are too noisy.
If you want to leave abandon the modern world in favor a kinder, gentler past that you think you remember, God’s speed but, please, don’t try to involve the rest of us in a co-dependency.
Footnotes:
I don’t know Savov and he seems sincere but, unfortunately, it was his article that made me snap. Consider this post an article complaining about the whole genre of “smart phones are distracting” complaints rather than an attack on Savov.