Internet Media

I’m packing for a family trip to an unfamiliar place. Given how this world works, I moved the SIM card out of my Light Phone 2 and back into my iPhone 11 Pro after over two years apart. And yes, I am grumpy about it.

I don’t want to use a smartphone, but I’m overwhelmed by the amount of bureaucracy involved in traveling and taking a vacation. I need an app to get on an airplane, to call a cab, make a reservation, look at a menu, etc.

The attractions I’m taking my family to (I don’t want to disclose my location ahead of time) has it’s own app that is a multiverse of crap. And this gets to why I really don’t want to use a smartphone anymore: It’s sold as making life easier for me, but it’s really about making it easier for them.

It makes it easier to consume their products, yes, but most of all, it makes it easier for them to process me. My requests get captured in a ticketing system, or molified by a chat bot. My attention is redirected with suggestions, deals, and offers.

My interactions get flattened into metrics that middle managers can optimize for their promotions and bonuses. All my purchases count towards one rewards program or another. That data is bought and sold a hundred times, but hey, I get a free cookie on my birthday, which they know because my birthday was a required field on the form I don’t remember filling out.

Life is allegedly easier with a smartphone, but really that means it’s harder not to use a smartphone.

A big reason why I don’t need a smartphone is that I’m in a city surrounded by stuff. I have it pretty good most of the time. I live near where I work. I can get around without a maps application. The signage is clear and familiar. I know where the cheap gas is. And a lot of essential places are walking distance, or reachable through public transportation. Call it infrastructure, amenities, or community. I don’t need to consult a third-party source of information when there are signs everywhere, and everything else is visible with the naked eye.

Anyway, when I’m annoyed this weekend because I’m reading a menu on a phone, or getting turn-by-turn directions that are unclear about which lane I was supposed to be in to get off at the right exit, I’ll picture the serenity of my Light Phone, telling me nothing and asking nothing of me.

I’ve followed Charlie Warzel’s Galaxy Brain since the height of the pandemic, even before it was aqcuired by The Atlantic. I’ve nodded along for years as Warzel wrote about internet bullshit, but lately the newsletter has gotten weird even for me.

Charlie Warzel, The Feeling of Control Slipping Away:

Culturally, the flood of slop, AI influencers, fake accounts, and AI tools is blurring the lines of an already post-truth age.

I can’t make sense of that!

Is an “AI influencer” an influencer whose area of influence is “AI”? Are they an approximation of a human influencer created using generative tools? Flood of slop, fake accounts. Where? Which AI tools?

I give myself some credit here. If Galaxy Brain is now unrelatable, that’s because I’ve insulated myself from internet bullshit. But I did it, in part, because of the influence of reading Galaxy Brain. I feel I owe something to Charlie Warzel. It’s concerning that his brain might be getting eaten by the subject he studies. So please send somebody to check on him. I’d hate to lose a good one to internet madness.