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you can acknowledge predatory practices of social media and advertising without deeming the smartphone usage to be the prime cause for 'mental illness epidemic'. there are people who seriously think that social unrest, bigotry, propaganda, climate change etc. aren't the real problem, but the modern technologies that give us access to the news, thus making us 'more anxious and depressed'. while in the same breath pretending as if these things aren't influencing us as much offline as well.
listen, you can fetishize old tech as much as u want and flaunt your flip/dumb phone without pretending like getting them will solve all people's issues. 'increased mental illness diagnoses coincide with popularisation of smartphones' is giving 'increased autism diagnoses coincide with popularisation of modern vaccines.'
some people really need to get off their high horse and broaden their horizons, man. if you think all your problems come from smartphone usage, maybe you should check your priviledge.
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xxRebellious_Emmaxx
The problem with smartphones has to do with their intentionally addictive design and the mobilization of social media platforms (which in turn, have been designed to be addictive by their very nature). Plus, the internet really is no longer confined to just a small area inside of homes/schools/workplaces/public library for many individuals in this day and age (or at the very least to a laptop, which isn't as easy to lug around in your bag with you when you leave the house as you may think), which of course plays a role in fueling the other factors I've mentioned (particularly the latter).
Also, I am NOT a fan of how a lot of analog things such as paper tickets and paper sign in sheets appear to be disappearing thanks to people's addiction to such devices (and the billionaires wanting to fatten up their already fat pockets from selling as much of your data as they can, of course).
Maybe it's because I can remember a time right before smartphones or tablets came into my household and even into the hands of my classmates at school for that matter, but I do genuinely think things were much better back even in the not so olden days of my folks and I owning and only being able to access the internet on a Windows 7 laptop in the first half of the 2010s. Life hasn't really felt the same to me since 2015 and I think this is truly the biggest reason why when I really stop to think about it (plus all the other things that happened in my life right around the time I turned 9 that year).
And as a little side note, I used to personally own a smartphone myself circa 2017 - 2023 before finally ditching it for good in June 2023 right before the very end of my junior year of high school. My only regret is not doing this sooner than I did. I am NOT going back to owning a smartphone anytime soon (and hopefully not at all for that matter). I will have to be dragged kicking and screaming my lungs out as loud as I can to go back to owning one of those addictive and homogenous slabs of glass ever again. Not EVER again will I willingly own one after learning from my first mistake as a kid here.
by xxRebellious_Emmaxx; ; Report