21st Century Luddites

In the Industrial Revolution, there were people who rejected the use of machines in the workplace. They were called the Luddites. The 21st Century needs its own version now.

In the article I wrote the other day about the MAHA drama at House InHabit, I had a line at the beginning about wishing away my cell phone. I was surprised by the reaction that line had on so many people. It has been a genuine question of mine for the last several years. I have a strange relationship with the phone. My business depends upon it, and the different opportunities that it has afforded for travel and adventure while my children were young cannot be ignored. But given all of that, I wish I had never bought into the narrative that it was a necessary part of business in the twenty-first century. I loathe the thing. I feel like at this point I need a serious detox from it, nearly as if it were a raging addiction to heroin. I make stupid excuses for using it.

“I need it for work.”

“It’s easier than hauling a camera around.”

“I want to check in on the kids.”

“All my music is on it.”

All interesting and semi-compelling reasons to continue its use, but disproportionate to the time it consumes in my life. And I am not alone. Our entire culture is consumed by this mania. In any honest assessment, what we have given away is not worth the gain.

Years ago, before any of my friends or I had cell phones, we would go fishing for days without contact and never think twice about it. Now, that same group of guys cannot be away from the phone for more than a few hours at a time, and even then, it might be a stretch to say a few hours. We blame it on work, or needing to stay in touch with our wives, and it all sounds and seems justifiable. We tolerate it with one another, and when the conversation lags with the lifelong friends in the room, we all go over and check our feeds from the outside world to see what next move President Trump has made or what stupid gaffe the Senator from New York has said. This isn’t a criticism of any of my friends, nor any of you reading, who likely battle the same things. This is the new reality that we are in. Almost everyone has fallen prey to its trappings. Buzzing watches, beeping phones, alerts on computers, all there to make sure that our attention is squarely focused on anything but what is in front of us.

There’s a lot to break down in how it happened. And there are dozens of intentional causes that the tech companies have used to make sure that we stay hooked. The monetization of social media, the ease of search, the latest app, the newest productivity tool, our calendars, our music, our entertainment, our movies, our communications, our banking, our bibles…all at the touch of our fingers. The tech companies want us on these things. The more that we are, the more that they profit. They have made them “THE accessory” for living.

I ran across an exasperated Hugh Grant speaking on the damage the tech companies have done to our children and to us.

Children's Health Defense

captured him on a Zoom call discussing the captivity our children are in with technology.

My wife and I felt proud that we did not allow our kids to have cell phones until they started driving. We used the idea of safety and emergencies as the rationale. Now, I wish I had held even more firm to their not being a part of our lives. I find it a monstrous failure in my parenting. I helped my kids get the very device that I equate to heroin. I don’t place all the blame squarely on my shoulders either. The pressures on them from society were real, too. My youngest son is the captain of the swim team and “needed” one to stay in touch since he doesn’t attend the school. One of my twin boys is in Boston, and we wanted him to be able to call home anytime he wanted.

My oldest son is my biggest moment of failure. I have discussed many times here how he is our most difficult kid. We aren’t sure if he was injured by the medical establishment or had developmental issues as a twin, but whatever it is, his rage and temper would get the better of his mother and me. Despite our best attempts, and a conviction when they were young that we were not going to allow for television or screens, a game or a television show gave us a moment of reprieve from a very difficult situation in our house. But we pay for those moments now. He has a propensity towards computers naturally, but the device can capture his attention for far too long on any given day.

While I could lament on this for paragraphs, the bottom line is that as I observe the world around me, we are not alone in this battle. Every ride on a plane, or mass transit, or a walk down any city sidewalk, everyone is consuming technology on their devices. It is still the same world, but no one engages with each other. The window they hold is more captivating, more highlight-driven than anything going on around them. It has driven most of our culture to spend its energy on consumption. The ease of technology has allowed us to be the worst version of our species. Predatorily, the tech companies have used the inherent tendencies and adaptive traits for survival to hold us captive to the windows in our hands.

There was a group of people early in the Industrial Revolution who saw industrialization as a threat to their livelihoods and way of living. They were called the Luddites. From the World History Encyclopedia:

“The Luddites, named after their legendary leader Ned Ludd, were workers who protested at the mechanization of the textile industry during the Industrial Revolution. From 1811 to 1816, the violent strategy of the Luddites was to smash the machines they thought had taken or threatened their jobs, to burn down factories, and to attack the private property of factory owners.”

While I am certain there are people in our culture who have yet to succumb to the pressures of the device life, there were no violent protests or smashing of machines as we moved into this new world. Sadly, no one recognized the threats that these devices were posing. They were celebrated and venerated. People, myself included, stood in line for the first iPhone. There was a sense that what we were about to embark on as a society was one that was much more liberated and free than the past. Offices could be on the beach or the ski slope. We could do our work without the cumbersome office life or the desktop computer. It was going to be a new dawn of a Jetsons-like experience. Everyone would be looking up and forward to the future.

Twenty years later, the dream is nothing like what I had thought it would be. No one looks up. There are skeletal deformations that are happening as people stretch their necks downwards. Communication is hollow. Soundbites, the most awful form of news, have been replaced by posts and tweets and dancing teenagers on TikTok. Our entire species runs on ten-second dopamine hits to fuel our existence. We see even basic experiences like concerts, movies, or public gatherings, and no one can just participate in the moment. They have to capture it on their camera, or post to social media, or text their friends that they are having a better experience at the moment than they are.

How do we unwind this?

I don’t have answers, but I do think that there is hope on the horizon that people are tired of this notifications way of life. Travel lodges and sites are beginning to offer digital detox retreats. The millennial generation is creating their own vacations with friends, which are cell phone and device-free. Gen Z is opting for real-life experiences over digital ones.

There are ways to overcome it without flying to Bora Bora, too. We can call one another out about it in helpful ways. We can leave the phone in the car when we go to lunch or breakfast with a friend. We can place an emphasis back on being outside without the stimulation of voyerism upon others’ experiences. Our responsibility is to the human experience instead of the portrayed one we carry around in our pockets.

It’s convicting to write about my own foibles. I have made a monster of myself in many ways, and I want it to change. I don’t need government mandates to fix this either. In a full circle realization about what is happening in our country, it’s the awareness of our own troubles that makes any needle politically or socially move. Once we see what we have become, it cannot be unseen. I realize that in my own behaviors and actions, I have allowed myself to be taken advantage of by tech and their bright devices. It will take a huge fortitude and drive to end the madness I have made for myself, but I remember from my youth that I had lived, worked, and played without any of it.