Philosopher Alain de Botton challenges the “lazy brain” argument about our relationship with our phones and how we rely on them. Instead, he proposes we use them as a tool for self-avoidance and have a genuinely unhealthy, addictive relationship with them.
Source: Mindful, November 3, 2017.
To say we are addicted to our phones is not merely to point out that we use them a lot. It signals a darker notion: that we use them to keep our own selves at bay. Because of our phones, we may find ourselves incapable of sitting alone in a room with our own thoughts floating freely in our own heads, daring to wander into the past and the future, allowing ourselves to feel pain, desire, regret and excitement.
INSIGHTS: de Botton explores how we use our phones to avoid “a frank encounter with our own minds” and how that affects us:
- Google becomes your brain
- We can’t immerse in moments of awe
- We don’t receive the most important notifications of all