We Are in this Horror Story Together
Each day, we all awaken to a familiar horror story. Behind the mere six-inch screen of our smartphones lurks an army of dodgy characters, constantly conspiring to steal our precious attention.
As you ride a subway train, glance around at your fellow passengers. Heads bowed low, eyes mindlessly fixated on the screens in their hands, index fingers twitching or swiping. Don’t they bear an uncanny resemblance to the zombies in that movie you watched over the weekend? And then, when you look into the mirror, you realize you belong to the same species, with the screen in your own hand blinking back at you.
A smartphone is far from a traditional machine like your washing machine. That appliance sits quietly in the corner of your balcony, only springing into action when you command it. But leave your smartphone unattended on the desk, and it bombards you with notifications, pings you with new messages, and demands your attention every few minutes. It’s like an eager puppy, craving attention, wagging its virtual tail and expecting a treat – and it always gets one.
This smartphone is a conspiracy hatched by a cohort of venture capitalists, business executives, software engineers, and product designers ensconced in their tinted-glass office towers.
The smartphone feeds on attention and is insatiable. It’s a monster engineered to be irresistibly alluring.
In every horror story, there’s always that one fateful human mistake that opens Pandora’s box and ushers in a world-ending disaster. In the case of our daily smartphone horror show, I believe my first misstep is looking at my phone first thing in the morning.