Confession of an iPhone Addict
I, Conor McFadden, am a recovering iPhone addict.
The first step is admitting you have a problem. For years, I blamed my “connection” to my phone on outside forces- generally work. The Trump tweet. The urgent call from a counterpart. I have even written diatribes on how email is my personal candidate for the antichrist. But here’s the disconcerting thing. When my daily work commitments ceased 8 months ago, the familiar longing for my iPhone didn’t stop. True, I was no longer jolting awake at night to respond to urgent emails, yet the compulsive daytime checking continued unabated. I began to notice:
Whenever I reflected on my day, I could not recall what I did on my phone. That time vanished into a vortex, leaving no trace.
When at the park or pool with my kids, I would find myself checking and re-checking my phone. Often the same websites I had just checked five minutes before. A relentless search for any sort of new information or distraction.
Despite being on my phone, I wasn’t responsive to texts/calls from people (especially when compared to my old work self). So screen time stayed steady, but response time went down. What was I using that time for?
Distilling this down: In a life where every second is so valuable, why was I letting my iPhone eat my time?
I consider myself relatively disciplined. Not perfect by any means, but a childhood spent balancing school and sports instilled time management skills. I’m not a video gamer nor do I have a strong internet community or presence. In fact, I have no social media other than an X account that I use to passively follow news. Generally, I felt I was well prepared to deal with modern technology.
It turns out I vastly underestimated my opponent. There is a reason that 3 of the Magnificent 7 companies (Apple, Google and Facebook) are titans of the mobile era. And there is a reason why the highest-paid entry level jobs outside of deep quant trading were to be found in the mobile software engineering space over the last decade. The most powerful companies in the world were directing their smartest entry-level employees with one over-arching task: Keep an individual on their mobile platform for one second more. Viewed this way, my natural resistance to modern technology was about as effective as a swimsuit in a snowstorm. This made me wonder: what in my natural makeup makes me so vulnerable to this iPhone addiction, and could it be changed?
I’ll keep a long story short. Yes, I do think I could change my makeup to be less vulnerable to my iPhone addiction, but frankly, I don’t want to. Because what makes me addicted is precisely one of my defining virtues- my love of learning. Following the thread down the rabbit hole, my attraction to my iPhone revolves around the infinite access to information that it brings. I am obsessed with that feeling of being in the know. Having the latest piece of information. Knowing the answer to that obscure piece of trivia. Researching whatever random question comes to my head. In this sense, the iPhone is a technological marvel- a palm-sized computer far more powerful than its giant ancestors that launched Astronauts to the moon. A portal to Artificial Intelligence with generations of knowledge in my grasp. To the curious, the iPhone can be a never-ending playground of discovery, knowledge and adventure.
By offering an endless outlet for my curiosity, the iPhone makes it too easy to miss the moments right in front of me. To let time vanish into a river of knowledge, information and facts- a trap disguised as an intellectual jungle gym.
Now, this description of my own experience may or may not resonate, but I suspect these devices lure each of us uniquely. In the documentary, The Social Dilemma, Tristan Harris observes about social media/devices, “If you’re not paying for the product, then you are the product.” In this world of infinite personalization, everyone’s temptations will be different. Some crave knowledge. Some crave distraction. Many crave connection. And the tech giants are pouring their time, money and efforts into finding what exactly makes you tick and then offering you a Faustian bargain- your time for what you desire.
In that case, it is at least worth knowing what you are giving away. Better a recovering addict than an unaware captive.