Back at you on this lovely Friday. This week I wanted to write about something that’s been on my mind for the last two decades: my phone. I have a love hate relationship with this thing. I love being able to call my wife but hate everything else. Still, it’s pretty clear that this device is a necessary evil. Whenever I come close to getting one of those “dumb phones” I think about how easy it is to tap to pay for my coffee and how badly the photos of my daughter will suck.
I’m not trying to make any grand sweeping point about going off the grid, I have been acutely plugged in since I began working for “the internet” in 2006. But I have found myself withdrawing more and more. So let’s open up that tab, scroll through, and see what we can uncover.
Dear Jake,
I’m a mid-30s millennial mom, and for a list of reasons that seems to grow all the time, the social internet makes me so anxious these days. From the way the algorithms feel like they’re programming my brain, to influencer culture and weird parenting takes, political polarization and how I never even see my friends’ posts anymore… at the risk of sounding crotchety, it’s just not the same as it used to be.
And yet, I can’t seem to leave, because how else do we keep up with friends these days? How else do I stay in touch with people or know what’s going on in the group chat?
My question: how do you deal with the strangeness of the social internet? How do we deal with wanting to be present in that space while also wanting nothing to do with it sometimes?
Best,
Antsy Amanda
Dear Antsy Amanda,
I’m just gonna give this whole response a blanket caveat that I am aware of how old I sound starting… now. The internet used to be a place of joy and wonder. It was a world full of people who were figuring it out and testing its limits. But like you, I do just sense in my gut that it feels different now.
To me, the idea of feeling detached if you engage with social media less feels almost like getting FOMO after leaving the bar at 4am. There’s no longer anything good happening there. It’s possible that people like us just don’t get it. But, hey, if that’s the case, then we’re probably better served if we stop trying to.
Rather than write a very poorly researched internet think piece, I’ll tell a recent/random story. This past weekend I went out to dinner with my brother and Jill. We were sitting at the bar waiting for our table when I looked outside at a group of people eating. They were young, attractive, dressed cool. They had cold drinks, and the weather was perfect. Night had just fallen. If you were walking through the neighborhood this is the exact group of people you would see dining outside and think, “Man, they are living life. I should get out tonight, too.”
But one dude was looking at his phone. It was facing my direction, right under the window. And I couldn’t help but look. He was watching an instagram reel of a woman who I believe was raking a yard full of ball pit balls. He was not looking up. And I’m not judging him, to be fair I was also looking at his phone. Plus, I have been this person as well, looking at soccer highlights while my daughter is showing me the outfit she just put on her stuffed bunny.
It’s not a new sentiment to say that the world next to your phone is way cooler than the one in it, but the instance just felt so stark to me. And it made me love my brother and my spouse, and the immediacy of our moment. So to finally get around to answering your question. I have been dealing with the strangeness of the social internet by interacting with it much less. I’ve recognized that it doesn’t bring me lasting joy the way witnessing bunny’s new tutu does.
Yet you also ask how to feel connected and up to date with friends. So I thought deeply on if I actually do anything to combat the gravitational pull of the internet while also not extracting myself from society. And it turns out I do!
I live my entire life on Do Not Disturb mode. My phone has enough of a hold on me without buzzing all the time. I went into the settings to make sure a few people can break through, but for the most part I am living that FOCUS life.
I deleted most of the big social media apps from my phone. I still have Instagram, but I took it off my home screen, so I have to go looking for it in shame. It’s a minuscule speed bump that actually helps more than I would have imagined.
It’s hard to see friends in the real world, but I do try. And if that doesn’t pan out I tend to feel closer to pals by opting for text threads instead of DMs.
I gave up any expectations I had for feeling something from Instagram, but I do enjoy it for mindless scrolling. Admitting to myself that it is a self soothing tool rather than a party makes it feel more meditative and less empty.
None of this is quite as good as throwing my phone into the ocean, but it does help make the internet feel more like a lukewarm bath and less like an abandoned mall I can’t stop wandering through.
That’s just my ultra millennial take. But if you are a Gen Z-er who totally disagrees feel free to DM me on TikTok where I will never be to read it.
Thank you for reading everyone! We will be back next week. In the meantime, you can click the button below to recommend this newsletter. That would be awesome.
Want a Jake Take on anything going on in your life? Send an email to just.contact.jake@gmail.com