In my 20’s, the only tech I owned was an iMac computer, Nexus 5 smartphone, Nintendo Wii, and a TV set. I had this setup in part because I was broke and moving around a lot, but I was also a minimalist.
I wanted to rebuke the accumulation of stuff that I saw with my parents, so I got rid of everything that wasn’t necessary or serving my needs at the time. I avoided buying physical media, and I looked to digital technology to fill in the gaps.
The smartphone was the driver in the minimalist setup, particularly my Nexus 5 (2014). It was faster and more powerful than anything I had before, with a larger high resolution display, and it finally had good enough battery life for all-day use. When I went out, I no longer had to huddle around power outlets in public places!
Smartphones had reached maturity, and everbody knew it. A Radioshack advertisement from 1991 went viral because a smartphone could replace nearly all of the advertised gadgets. Steve Cichon wrote “the technology of only two decades ago now replaced by the 3.95 ounce bundle… in our pockets.” It was goodbye to all our old crap and hello to modernity. We now had the everything device.
Later that year, Slate called 2014 “The Year of Outrage”. They documented that every day of the year a public figure or current event caused a backlash on social media. At the time this was kind of an oddity, though now we might call it The First Year of Outrage. (What do you mean, one?)
It’s no coincidence that the year smartphones reach maturity is The Year of Outrage.
What makes the mobile medium different from the traditional PC is that it’s always on, always with you, and always connected – which means there is no rest from it, no boundaries, and no time to mentally reset.
The smartphone combines with internet media to become always-on internet media. It’s the internet with no natural boundaries of space, time, or context. You don’t have to wait to get home and log on to find out about something outrageous. It’s always with you.
No wonder the media environment feels angrier and crazier all the time. The emotional outrage harvests attention, the structure of internet media funnels our attention into apocalyptic thinking, and thanks to the new packaging, it’s everywhere all the time.
I originally thought of the smartphone as a simple exchange of one kind of stuff for another. It takes up no square footage in my home, sure, but the content of the phone takes up as much attention, or square footage of my mind, as I let it.
It was a mistake to think that reclaiming physical space by replacing a bunch of stuff with one device necessarily meant reclaiming mental space. It just didn’t work out that way for me, at least not once the everything-all-at-once aspect of internet media included all the time and everywhere.
I’m sure there are people who are bathed in internet media and handling it great, though I have my doubts judging from the weird and uncomfortable conversations that I find myself having. And maybe I’m more sensitive than the average person, more prone to ruminative thoughts, more likely to get into a negative feedback loop. It doesn’t really matter. Whatever the case, it’s how I’m wired and it’s what I’m working with. To reclaim space in my mind for what truly matters, I must keep smartphones and internet media at a remove. To me, that is the new minimalism.
It was The Great Raspberry Pi Shortage of 2021, and also a global pandemic that claimed the lives of millions of people. Busying myself with trivial things, I made a retro video game system out of a Raspberry Pi 4. It was so much fun that I wanted to buy another one, but any available Raspberry Pi was being flipped for many times the retail price.
I thought, No problem, I have all these smartphones gathering dust in a drawer. After all, a Raspberry Pi is just an ARM processor and every smartphone has an ARM processor. Some of those old phones might even be more powerful than a Pi 4.
I assumed that I could install a conventional version of Linux onto Android hardware. Even if it was the most bare bones version of Linux, without a graphical user interface, that would give me enough to work with.
My research turned up almost nothing. I was genuinely embarrassed. I should’ve known better. I did know better! Yet I stupidly thought that the Android open source project combined with somebody, or “the community”, had a solution for reusing all this hardware. It was unthinkable that the last twenty years of smartphones were destined to be paperweights.
For years, I heard all this talk about Android’s openness, with software built on open source, and Google wanting to appear to be the good guy opposite Apple. Now it’s been seventeen years since the first Android phone and we have nothing to show for it. There is no consensus alternative software for Android phones and no straight-forward way to install it.
(More on this later. I’ve spent a lot of time researching alternative smartphone operating systems.)
After that, the spell was broken. I realized that my technology products would all become garbage in the future, and much sooner than I expected. I started to see all my technology as future garbage.
Drawing a Line in the Sand
I’m taking a stand against the future garbage cycle. In the short-term, this means no more money for new devices. With the long-term goal of reinventing my tech ecosystem using things I already own and second-hand tech. The most important part is to not buy anything brand new.
I’ll make compromises . It’s okay if I have less computing power or fewer features.
I’ll dabble in hypocrisy. I still live in modern society and have to negotiate it.
I have questions that I need answered. How much can I cut down on e-waste by making different consumer and lifestyle choices? How much will I have to give up by relying on aging and second-hand products? Will I need to buy something new to keep using essential services? Can I replace mainstream commercial services with more durable alternatives?
I won’t have the answers to these questions for years. And this is the exciting part. This is where I learn, in a visceral way, how much I need mainstream technology, and how much of it is truly garbage.
I bought a laptop on Craigslist because I wanted an inexpensive entry into trying Linux. I’m weaning myself off of the planned obsolescence of consumer technology. And I’m preparing for a future where all of my computers are second-hand.
I scoped out laptops on Craigslist for months. Some of the things I wanted, like replaceable parts or more ports, are things you tend to get with older laptops, while newer laptops are thinner and lighter at the expense of repairability and ports. But coming from my very powerful M1 MacBook Air, I was worried that any Intel processor would run like crap by comparison. So I prioritized getting a newer processor (and a newer model) over other features.
Finally I settled on an HP EliteBook x360 1030 G3 (Catchy name, right?!). It was a good price at $150 with an 8th generation Intel processor. It has a pair of USB-C Thunderbolt ports, a USB-A port, and HDMI.
I’m getting comfortable using Debian Linux. It’s not as polished as macOS, but I haven’t found any major usability issues. There are some quirks because apps are written using different tool kits and lack a common look and feel. (For example, the appearance of the window buttons for minimize, maximum, and close are different between applications. This does not happen on macOS.)
I see all this as a long-term investment in Linux as a skill.
It’s interchangeable components and applications gives me an insurance plan against future updates that I don’t like, and it means I can carry my experience to another Linux distribution that is nearly the same as what I’m used to.
I’m more prepared to take a cast-off computer and put it to use because Linux uses fewer system resources than macOS and Windows, and if that isn’t enough, there are distributions designed for less powerful hardware.
This 2018 EliteBook running Linux is good enough for my personal needs. With that, I can check out from consumer technology and keep this second-hand computer deal going forever. No more comparing what I have to the latest model. No more reading the tea leaves of the Apple rumor mill. And no more tech news.
To the tech reviewers and content creators, keep it up. After all, I’m gonna need your ten-year-old reviews whenever I get around to upgrading.