theodolite

NICHOLAS CARRIGG

Dedicated Things

When someone says he wants to spend less time on his smartphone, he may say that he wants a "digital detox." I am guilty of using the term digital in this way, along with its antonym, "analog," to mean things not on my phone or the Internet. But this is slang. After all, my Casio watch is digital despite having no connection to anything. So are those old-fashioned alarm clocks where the numbers flip over.

But I think that when we say analog to mean "offline" rather than just "not quantized," what we really mean is dedicated.

This is why the old Casio F-91 from the 1980s is still one of the most popular watches in the world. Its LCD screen lacks hands like a truly analog watch, or the grandfather clock in my living room, but it is dedicated. All the watch does is measure and display time.

You can look up a few interesting photos of all the things that smartphones replaced laid out on a table. I think it is worthwhile to list a few:

...I could go on depending on how tedious you want to get and how far back you want to go. For example, smartphones also replaced flashlights, which themselves replaced lanterns, candles, and torches.

But here I think it is worth dwelling on the lighting question. The most ancient way to see in the dark was likely a torch. Candles and oil lamps replaced torches, and then electric bulbs replaced all forms of combustion lighting. Despite these technologies being different in how they look, how they function, and how one needs to maintain them, they all still more or less did one thing: they illuminated.

Now, consider the smartphone with a flashlight on it. In order to access that functionality, I need to first unlock it, then I need to navigate to the flashlight app, and then I need to turn it on. In the meantime, I might be bombarded by notifications from social media. Or, my phone may need a software update. Or, maybe I deleted the flashlight app because my phone ran out of space (I realize most phones do not allow this, but for the sake of argument, pretend you can), now I need to download the flashlight app, and maybe even watch an ad, before I can see the thing in the dark room that I want to see.

The point I am alluding to is that the allure of dedicated devices is not nostalgia or ambiance. That is the difference between candles and flashlights, but it is not the difference between flashlights and flashlight apps.

That something is lost with every new technology is likely true. Whether we like to admit it or not, books replaced oral storytelling as an art. Reading a book is usually a solitary endeavor, and even in the odd circumstance where people choose to communally listen to a book read aloud, the experience is very different from a person telling or reciting a story.

But I argue that even this somewhat qualitative and sentimental difference between books and oral storytelling is insignificant compared to the leap from dedicated devices to the amalgamated smartphone. It is not just a matter of convenience either. The more we shove into the little black boxes, the more difficult getting anything meaningful done becomes because of clunky interfaces, the torrent of distractions the smartphone offers, and how the slot machine of social media is rewiring our brains to have less and less tolerance for activities that provide delayed satisfaction.

I have seen a meme pop up recently that "watching a movie feels like an accomplishment now" because people's attention spans have eroded to such a degree. This is the fault of the multipurpose distraction machine we all have with us at all times now.

The solution, I think, is to replace the smartphone with dedicated devices again. And by that, I do not mean analog in the true sense. They still sell small digital cameras, for example. We do not have to return to film (though, there are benefits to that, too). What this looks like will vary from person to person, just like it always has. So, if you do not lift weights, you do not need to buy a weightlifting log book. Think about what makes sense for you, and do not get caught up in a kind of purity spiral. Again, the idea is dedicated, not "analog" or "retro" for sentimental reasons! The idea is to trade an iota of inconvenience, or the need for a learning curve, in order to gain back clarity of purpose. In other words, if a dedicated GPS for your car works, get that over trying to navigate with a map. There is nothing wrong with learning to use a map, and it is likely a good skill to have, but the point is not to go back in time, it is to go forward with dedicated technology that helps us live our lives well.

My Personal "Dedicated Stack"

Here is a running list of the dedicated items I am using. I will update this over time, and might post a follow-up to this article about what has worked and what has not: