becoming a millenial

my birthday was a few months ago, i know i'm young, still a teenager, but my birthday and the following months didnt feel how i wanted it to. i've looked back at what i spent my time on in the past 2 years and i was honestly so disappointed in myself. as a child, i couldn't wait to be a teenager, i couldn't wait to go out with my friends without having my parents watch over me, i couldn't wait to wear makeup and do my nails, i couldn't wait to live one of those 'high school dreams' i always used to see in movies. now that i am a teenager, remembering how much i dreamed to be my present age, and i feel like i failed my previous expectations. 

i've spent so much time on my phone, scrolling, and for what? the sad thing is that previously, when the internet was launched and social media first became a thing, everyone remebers it as such a revolutionary, ineffable experience. though i wasn't there back then, i know it was. when social media first became a thing, every social media creator was trying to make their app the best, they wanted as many people on it as possible, not in the 'addiction for profit' way but it was more focused on genuine connection rather than performance or profit. it was less overwhelming, not being bombarded with ads as soon as you open the app. in the 2000s social media was about sharing your actual life with people, but with technology advancing and billionares funding it, technology, specifically social media became a place to dictate (literally) an entire generation and keep them unaware of what's going on in the world, forget what real fun is and how you should properly live with HEALTHY dopamine receptors and, obviously to bombard you with ads so they can generate more money. they do this by using algorithms to personalize feeds, creating unpredictable notifications, tapping into the brain's pleasure response through dopamine-releasing interactions. even a study by the BBC investigated this and proved that "Social media companies are deliberately addicting users to their products for financial gain". Back then it was updates from people you actually knew. now if i open facebook or instagram, i'll see 3 reels from a real person who i don't even follow, 7 'sponsred' posts and 24 dms all for different topics, yet all there for one reason, to distract and control. it's gotten so bad that despite the only people who i follow in ig are my friends sometimes when they post things i don't even see them.

whenever i think about this it makes me feel so terrible. and i've tried so many things, deleting my social media, using the dumb phone app but it never really worked, i am already addicted, but the iphone itself is designed to be addictive—it’s so well-designed, with an incredibly large, bright and amazing screen, vibrant colors, and powerful performance. i just got sick of it. Last week, i permanently deleted all my social media, factory reset my iphone and gave it away. i used to write on substack, but they honestly just turned it into a dupe of twitter, someone told me about this website which was literally a dupe of myspace and i signed up so here i am, hello everyone. i went through my dads drawer to find his old nokia, he used to use it up until 2022 until his work bought him an iphone, he used to tell me everyday, if his work didn't pay for his phone he would still be using his nokia. i've been using it for a week now and i feel better. using a dumb phone is hard, but it doesn't distract me from what i need to do. i saw a post on reddit of this guy saying;

if you know me personally, you know i've always had a passion for retro things, even before i made this change, and it's not just me but a lot of people. i used to see people on tiktok making videos reminiscing over old phones, old tech, frutiger aero, metro, vectorflourish "our souls were heavy but our hearts were free", they always make these videos crying over when life was fun while holding the one thing which is stripping their life of the fun, if you want that life back so bad then make the change, it might be hard, it might be embarrassing, when i take out my nokia people give me looks and when i told my friend some people overheard and laughed, some people may look at me and think i got punished by my parents or i wasn't allowed to get an iphone, but i don't care anymore. i've spent too much of my life caring about what people think, that's what stopped me from quitting sooner. i was scared of what people would think of me, what my friends would think of me, if we would even still be friends after i deleted all possibilities of being able to catch up with them. but the truth is if someone really likes you, they'll find a way. when i told my friend what i'm doing she was happy for me and instead, told me to correspond to her over emails. now we are literally living like Nomad609 and PrincetonGirl818 🥹❤️

i honestly just feel so much better now that i've quit modern modern tech

if you complain that time is going fast and everything feel numb, desensitized, and you feel a sense of dissociation from reality, well, maybe it’s time to check your screen time.

(didn't proofread this so if you find any mistakes i'm sorry)