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this post was submitted on 12 May 2026
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I have thought about this also. Especially when it comes to mobile technology. For most of my career I have been an advocate of mobile technology like smartphones, I have recommended it, I have set it up for people, and now I look at the world and honestly wonder if we wouldn't be a better place without smartphones.
Thing is, we are iron mongers. We build tools. We give people tools. "It is not the tool that determines its work, it is the mind mind of the man who holds the tool that does." (-Brannon LaBoeuf).
Does that absolve me of all responsibility? No not a chance. But it does offer s or a suggested path forward.
The harm that comes from computing for the most part, IMHO, doesn't come from users. It comes from people who exploit the users and users who don't realize they are being exploited. Meta, TikTok, Snap, Google, etc. these are the guys causing the problem.
So as technologists, we have an opportunity to change course. To show those who rely on us ways to use technology without being exploited. Yeah I realized to some degree it's a drop in the ocean, trying to piss up a rope but there are little victories to be had.
In short, be the change.
Yeah, for ages I thought pocket computers were the coolest idea. I loved my Palm devices, for instance!
The iPhone turned everything into a direct brain-line to exploitative commercial interests and that became the norm. I think that's where things went wrong.
The economy of attention has been one of the most destructive forces of our modern culture.
"Smartphones" would look a lot different if they were designed as tools for users, instead of profit farming equipment for tech giants. I don't think we would be seeing nearly as much harmful addiction and spying and de-educating if these stupid things weren't designed primarily for "maximum engagement at all costs."
Some of these little victories I'm seeing are Linux phones and people designing cyberdecks!
I think you're on the right track, but I wouldn't blame the iphone. The iphone was just a natural evolution of what came before it- Windows Mobile, PalmOS, etc. Even on those platforms we were starting to see things like gestural navigation. Iphone was just one of the first to trade a single-touch resistive touchscreen for a multi-touch capacitive touchscreen and go all in on gestural.
No, the problem is engagement algorithms. I blame Facebook for this most of all.
Go back quite a ways and Facebook wasn't the mess it was today- you'd go there and see a simple time-ordered list of posts by your friends (and that's it). I believe people still want that. But the problem is you can 'catch up' on that-- hit the end of new content, to what you've already seen last visit, and then you leave. Thus it's generally no longer an option on any social site, you instead get a 'feed' of some friends' content mixed with random crap the system thinks you'll engage with (and it learns quickly). That was starting to be a thing on desktop- I'm reminded of this video from when Facebook started pushing 'timeline' feeds on people rather than just simple posts. Original iphone was only 2007.
THAT is the problem IMHO. Smartphones just happened to show up at the same time, so instead of being a time-suck on your desktop those algorithms became a central line IV to time-suck your brain all the time. Algorithms were the problem, smartphones were the force multiplier.
With that said- I don't think smartphones are the problem today, but I do think that the overall ecosystem favors the time-suckers too much. For example I think every smartphone should have the option to deny Internet access to every app (BlackBerry had that back in the day). And if that screws up your ad supported business model too fucking bad, just make the app refuse to work without Internet and enjoy your 1 star reviews.
I think half the problem is platforms that entrap people. My partner for example (much less tech savvy than myself) has 1000s of photos in Facebook, because that used to be where it's easiest to make and share albums. Getting those out of Facebook while keeping the album structure or the comments from others would be very difficult, and Meta wants it that way.
Same thing with Google- they make it real easy to upload all your photos (which has the fun side effect of giving Google a location graph of your entire travel history, and a social graph of everyone you know).
The other half is as you say, attention suckers. I don't think the phone is itself designed for attention sucking (it's just a little computer with a touchscreen and a wireless modem), but the apps sure as hell are.
Fixing the first is at least possible for technologists. Self-host, show people alternatives.
Fixing the attention problem is much, much, much harder. It starts with kids- kids grow up with 'digital babysitter' ipads, and if you see any of the kids ipad and video programming it might as well be brain-frying crack for kids (bright colors, playful music, quick scene changes). So kiddo's brain is fried from 2-3yo on up. I know a few teachers and I can say parents DGAF about education anymore, when a kid does badly the teacher is more likely to get yelled at for giving a bad grade to their perfect little schnookums who tried as hard as he could. It's now policy that kids who don't pass will just be rubber stamped to the next grade- again and again. I read an article a few months ago that college professors are having to rework their curriculums because many of the college students can't read (or are scoring at middle school level for reading comprehension).
You can pass a law banning phones in schools but what the hell difference does that make if the kid goes back on TikTok the second the bell rings and never cracks a book?
I don't know what the answer there is. But I know it requires some serious societal-level rethinking, including accepting that it's okay to be bored.
Right there with you! The "attention economy" has absolutely wreaked havoc on humankind. They're at the core of all of this.
I suppose the reason I put so much blame on the devices is because of all these little design choices with both the hardware and the OS.
For example: Not having access to the file system, the radios always being on, being very anti-repairable, and like you said, apps not being sandboxed by default.
THIS so much! We're gonna be an iPadless household, and I'm telling everyone: If they gift anything cocomelon or equivalent, it's gonna go right back, thanks but no thanks.
Yeah, education has also been seriously screwed up, I could write entire paragraphs about that too. From "no child left behind" to "whole-word reading" dropping phonics (someone shared an excellent podcast series called "Sold a Story" about that disaster. Basically it taught kids to read like your phone keyboard predicts words. Exactly as insane as it sounds.)
A lot of education has to happen in the home, and we're several generations into practically unparented kids, whether just plain negligent and broken households or mom and/or dad both slaving their lives away at careers, unable to do any actual parenting and expecting the abused employees of the sabotaged barely-limping school system to do it for them.
I know we often don't see it, but there are a lot of bright young people out there, and they inspire others to be bright. I remain optimistic.
And I agree...I think people need to learn to sit with boredom and channel that, without a thousand expensive keys jangling in their faces the whole time. :)
I appreciate the thoughtful reply!
I also appreciate the thoughtful conversation. It's sadly rare these days. I was on Reddit since before the Digg migration, I fell in love with the place becuase there was always good conversations happening. Sadly now it's mostly just noise. Lemmy seems a little better.
I disagree about your analysis of hardware though. Some of that applies to Apple perhaps, but not Android. I have filesystem access on my phone. Radios can be turned off if I want. There's full service manuals available, as well as spare parts and tools/jigs so I can fix it myself if I want. And apps ARE sandboxed, although I wish there was more control on the sandboxing (IE firewall for internet disable).
Problem with that last one is it largely kills ad supported apps as a business model. If the app doesn't inherently need Internet to work, user will shut it off and then it can't serve ads. I'm not sure that'd be a bad thing, but it'd require some rethinks.
Hope your kids know how lucky they are.
That's true, but it's largely not happening. I know some people who work in education. It's now official policy to rubber stamp kids into the next grade if they aren't passing- someone decided that it's more socially damaging to hold a kid back than it's worth. So kids get behind and never catch up but they keep getting rubber stamped through the system.
Quite true. I struggle with this. It's so easy to just fire up instagram or something. But you're right, bordem leads to creativity.
This reminds me of a book I read many many years ago, it was a scifi book of some kind. The story as I recall- this dude gets kidnapped by aliens for some reason, they explain that they were debating blowing up the Earth because we were making too much tech progress too fast and civilizations that do that usually become a threat to their neighbors once they have weapons and stellar travel without the maturity that should go with it. But they found a different solution- they sent someone to Earth in disguise to invent television and slow down the rate of our advancement. Only then we created computers and people started getting smarter and progress accelerated again so they were worried they'd have to blow up the planet.
I think of that story and wonder, 'if that were a true story, I bet their second solution was to invent social media'.
Back in the early days of Reddit there was a thread, what would be the hardest part of modern tech to explain to someone 100+ years ago?. Highest voted answer was something like 'everybody carries in their pocket a device that cost hundreds of billions of dollars to develop. It can quickly access and display any piece of knowledge or art or music known to man, it can communicate in real time with anyone else on the planet, and it contains the equivalent of a full photography studio, movie editing room, and can publish to the entire world. We all use them to argue with strangers, publish photographs of our food, and look at pictures of cats.'