Smartphone woes: Choose the nuclear option?

At some point, we may all need to cut some (maybe most) of the digital ties that bind

Several decades ago, early in the desktop computer era, I needed to write a graduate project.

The kicker was that the university required this thesis to have traditional footnotes and the printed copy needed to be produced on a printer that produced text with a physical object striking the page. In other words, graduate students could not use low-quality dot matrix printers that produced blurry letters, etc.

At that point in time, there were only one or two forms of publishing software that could meet these requirements. Suffice it to say, almost everything that I have written — on paper — since that time has been produced on Word. This program still drives me crazy, from time to time, since the gods at Microsoft are sure that they know more about how I want to format my work than I do. And the (#triggerwarning) user-hostile matrix of pull down lists of vague commands and formatting options? It’s always there.

Why don’t I switch to a different software program? I have tried several times. The problem is that I have 30 million-plus words worth of documents stored all over the place in Word (including 36 years worth of national columns). I’m frustrated, but I’m also set in my ways.

How about email? Want to guess how many telephone numbers, addresses and file folders I have stored in a Big Tech Email Program that will not be named?

This brings me to a question that I faced yesterday at our Orthodox parish here in Northeast Tennessee, at the end of a Nativity Lent retreat that I led that focused on the role of mass media and technology in modern Christian homes. Yes, the second half of the day dug into issues linked to the cultural steamroller called The Holidays.

A young mother asked if allowing her children to have “dumb phones” — cell phones with no open door into social media and the World Wide Web — was all that much better than them having smartphones. Wouldn’t they still spend lots of time texting and sending emails? Wasn’t this, another parent added, rather like giving them low-nicotine cigarettes?

That was a decision that parents will have to make. Personally, I think the “dumb phones” are a good option, especially for teens.

Driving home, I thought about this. Could I live without a smartphone? I mean, I can’t imagine being unplugged from access to key Internet functions linked to my work as a columnist and blogger. It’s hard for me to remember what it was like, when I was a full-time professor, and I didn’t have smartphone connections to my students (who basically lived on their phones). And so forth and so on, world without end.

Then I remembered that, in my mountain of unread emails, I had an August Lamm post from The Free Press with this headline: “My Smartphone Was Ruining My Life. So I Quit. And you can, too.”

Oh my. Here is her overture:

Five years ago, I was sitting on the tile floor of a rental kitchen, trying to take a photo of myself to share online.

It was not an easy photo to take: The lighting was harsh; the walls were a weird pink color; and I had become so focused on taking the photo that I was no longer crying. I needed my sadness to be visible — runny nose, blotchy cheeks, shiny eyes — and I needed it in a 9:16 aspect ratio. How else would my followers know I was truly suffering?

I set down my phone. In an attempt to get more tears flowing, I thought about my circumstances. …

Why the tears? By all means, read Lamm’s litany for yourself.

Suffice it to say, someone who is an “online influencer” needs to be online pretty much all the time.

Eventually, the tears returned. She grabbed her smartphone again and got the shot that she needed. But that led to this stunning moment:

I posted the crying selfie, which I hoped would tastefully walk the line between tragic and attractive. I refreshed my inbox for sympathy, and I got it. But I was still alone on the kitchen floor. These strangers were my whole world, but to them, I was just one tear-soaked face in an endless stream of images. I stood up and, before the impulse could leave me, I disabled my Instagram account. I had 170,000 followers and no one to call.

This leads into a sobering discussion of the role that the online world played in her work, and thus her life.