I’ve always been an internet junkie. When they made it really fast and put it on a phone, it was pretty much game over. My usage is heavy, best described as a zigzag, across apps. Baseball stats, flight status, email check, text, random article, who knows what. All it takes is a slim distraction and my thumb turns turbo.
Of course it should have been obvious long ago, but on that revelatory night, I realised I had lost control. The reach for the phone had become involuntary. A bulbous chunk of my brain, sucked up by phonethink. Where’s the phone? Is it charged? Should I charge it now, or later? At work or at home, notifications buzz me like low-flying planes. I’m crossing the street, I’ll stop and look at the phone and have no idea what’s going on. I’m with my kids and I’m still touching the phone.
It is, in short, pathetic.
