Pockets Are Heavy, Soul Is Free
Article written by absurdpirate
mcblog.absurdpirate.com
In the wake of techno-nihilism, people are trying to find an out; Some "cure" for the surrounding enshitification of technology; An escape from AI being crammed into everything like an ugly stepsister into a glass slipper. I've noticed a movement, that has become an extension of other movements. The revival of technology of our childhood. Nostalgia Tech.
People are trading in their smartphones for a dumbphone, a 2000s digicam, and a Nintendo DS. There's this sort of sentiment I've seen floating around, "Our pockets were heavy, but our soul was free". It's a call for a time when technology served a single purpose, and it wasn't trying to ensnare every nanoangstrom of your attention, or your data.
Nostalgia and technology isn't a new combination. Off the top of my head, I can already think of the resurgence in vinyls (which has been around forever, it's just no longer for boomers). Retro gaming as well has been a cultural niche for decades now. The difference now, is that this movement is in contrast to the modern technological landscape. Instead of being just for pure nostalgia, it's now an act of rebellion. It's a big middle finger to the big tech giants and the black box they've constructed to feed us content and drain us of our time and attention.
Our pockets were heavy because we took what we thought we would use that day. It was almost a mindfulness exercise in itself. Thinking "what will I be doing today", and then "what should I bring". Devices served a single purpose and were generally offline, i.e. no internet at all times. It allowed us to be free and present in the moment. Yeah, you still had those teens that were on their phones constantly texting, but the difference was they were having one-on-one conversations with people they talked to in-person. On top of that, it eventually ended. If you ran out of people to message, you stopped texting.
I genuinely hope this trend of people ditching their smartphones for more single purpose devices keeps going, and doesn't just stop at being a trend. I hope it becomes a full movement. While I don't think everyone can fully switch to dumbphones and a DS, I do hope enough people start doing it to make it a sort of sub-culture that people can unite under.