I was just listening to a podcast episode from the Ezra Klein Show. The episode featured Zadie Smith and they talked about how she hasn’t owned a smartphone because the internet has become this manipulation machine. She said she doesn’t want someone to influence what she thinks, how she thinks without her choice. I agree with that point of view. It does tell me what to think about and influences how I define the sides. I can’t say I lose my original thoughts (in most cases I don’t) but I’m certainly given a starting point I didn’t choose.
I have long romanticized an analog life. A time when information wasn’t instantaneous and all-encompassing, when there was more awe and surprises, when we didn’t have enormous choices making choice pointless, when we lived in the moment experiencing it now rather than saving a fraction of it on our phones to experience it later.
I, like everyone, own a smartphone and am connected to the internet every second of my life. WiFi is oxygen, right? Every few minutes, I have the urge to pick up my phone to see if there’s a notification. There’s never anything important on it. I fight the urge but that urge wins most times, even if I don’t act on it, once it’s there it doesn’t go away. It’s the mind seeking a distraction. I think that’s human but I feel the phone has exacerbated that urge and then it gives me dopamine on a platter that I find hard to resist. I know that my phone use is not that bad but I still feel that it’s taking over parts of my mind.
I try to monitor my digital life because I know it’s changing me and maybe, not for the better. Yesterday, I was angry for a solid 10 mins because of the hatred-filled Twitter. It wasn’t directed at me but it was directed at my fellow countrymen. I wonder about the impact on individuals and on society as a whole. There has been scholarly work on both aspects that I will not go into. I believe it’s common knowledge that social media makes us anxious, sadder and lonelier. But it’s not like you can opt out and go back to a world without it.
On the podcast, Zadie Smith talks about not having a smartphone. She says she has owned a smartphone for only 3 months in her whole life. She acknowledges the inconveniences: no navigation, and once a year a travel disaster where it’s 3 a.m. and she has to walk somewhere because she can’t call an Uber. But she concludes that all the planning and an eventual disaster are worth the upsides.
I think about the upsides of a smartphone-free life all the time but I don’t know how to survive in a world built for smartphones. I need navigation, I need Uber, I need music. Maybe, if the world was built differently we would be better off. Well, doesn’t that mean people were better off before the advent of the omnipresent smartphone? I am not sure. I was not an adult then. What if I was an adult in the 90s? How would my life change? I don’t know. It was just a different world. Maybe, I could find a wizard who would transport me back in time with a snap of the fingers.
It’s a random sunny Saturday in San Francisco in 1995. I wake up to the sound of an alarm clock that I intentionally placed far away from the bed. I yell Siri, stop! but nothing happens. I yell again, louder this time. Still nothing so I walk over to turn it off. I walk into the kitchen to make coffee. I use a moka pot so things haven’t changed here.
I sit with my coffee and I don’t have my phone or laptop to read the news. I find a newspaper to read. I realize that I can’t video call my parents. This video call has been a norm in my life. But this is a huge bummer. Maybe, I can make a regular phone call but that would be a very expensive international call. I don’t know what to do about this part. I decide to focus on the newspaper in my hand. I spend an hour reading, then I decide to get breakfast. I drive to a breakfast place. There isn’t a line of people waiting to pick up DoorDash and Uber Eats orders. That’s a relief. The place is less crowded. It’s still full but not overflowing with delivery orders. I find a spot at the big table that seats 5. I sit there waiting for the burrito. I instantly look for my phone but there isn’t one. There’s nothing to do while waiting. I am sitting at this table with a couple that’s eating and talking. I am staring at the menu. It’s so weird. Why didn’t I bring a book? A few minutes pass, I am bored, really bored. My mind is going through all the conversations happening around me. The people next to me are talking about travel plans for the holidays. They’re going to the East Coast. I make a comment about the winter and ask if they’re ready for the cold. We talk about the winters, the East Coast, our experience of SF. I get my breakfast burrito and time passes quickly in the conversation. They leave in a few minutes and there’s no, “let’s connect on Instagram” or “here’s my cell, let’s stay in touch”.
I leave the restaurant and drive home to grab a book then head to my regular cafe. The cafe is different but not that different. There are no laptops, no headphones, only newspapers, books and conversations. There’s still music. I think I like this track but I can’t Shazam it so I might never know what song it is. I try to remember the words so that I can look it up later. I order a coffee and take a seat at the bench at the end of the cafe. I feel restless. I don’t have a phone or a laptop. Fortunately, I have a book that I can read. Suddenly, I notice the conversations around me, certainly more than what I experience in 2025. There’s an ease that you can just say stuff like that book looks interesting, what’s it about? I don’t know why I feel the ease. Maybe, it’s that people aren’t wearing headphones or that I am seeing it happening around me or it’s just that I believe that it’s certainly okay to do it here in 1995. Anyway, I talk to a few people, ask them about their plans for the day. One of them invites me to a bar that he and his friends are going to later at 8. I ask him the address and realize I have no way to note it down. I grab a napkin, ask for a pen and write it down. I have no idea where this address is. I make a mental note to ask someone or buy a map.
It’s afternoon and I haven’t felt the need for a phone and have had a few interesting conversations. Nothing I couldn’t do in 2025. I go for a walk. There’s no GPS, no podcast to listen to so I am alone with my thoughts and I am noticing things around me. In my usual walks, my thoughts are seeded by the input from the audiobooks or podcasts. I find this not uncomfortable but also, not that pleasant. I mean the podcasts I listen to give me new information to think through. Now, my thoughts are seeded by my eyes. I see more people on the streets and again, conversations. I guess conversations (and TV) are the easiest way to entertain yourself.
Life isn’t drastically different but it’s quite limiting. There’s friction. I don’t have all the information of the world at my fingertips. I walk by a bookstore and remember that I need a map to find that bar I was invited to. I buy a map and locate the place. It’s a little far and I don’t know how to get there. I do have a car but I don’t want to drive there. My map doesn’t have transit information and there’s no Uber. I ask the bookstore owner how to get to that address. He gives me a transit map. I study the map. There’s a bus that I could take, the bus runs every 30 minutes. That’s good enough. I know a cab would be faster but I don’t know how to get one. I realize I’ve never hailed a cab without an app.
I take the bus to get to the bar. That wasn’t bad at all. At the bar, I meet the group. It’s a dive bar, so things aren’t much different either. People are catching up! They’re talking about their jobs, events they’re going to, movies and TV shows they’re watching. Someone says, “Did you see yesterday’s episode of David Letterman?” In my time, we don’t talk about yesterday’s episode because there’s no such thing. Streaming has changed the world so we don’t have to watch things that same day. It’s always available and abundant. Guess that’s why we can’t talk about it because there are very few shows that most people watch. We all have different worlds of media consumption that are beyond time and geography. I respond, nah, I missed it. Who was the guest? The ones who saw it start talking about it. I listen in. The conversation takes various turns but stays on Letterman for 10 minutes. It’s interesting to see the shared world and to know the scarcity that if you miss it, you miss it. You can’t go back to it unless the network decides to replay it. I remember missing episodes of my favorite cartoon shows as a kid and I still think about them because I was so invested in the story and I still don’t know what happened. I still don’t know what happened in X-Men when the oldest mutant was awakened. It’s unsettling but so real, if you miss it, you miss it.
I decide to leave around 10 and I have a daunting task to figure out how to get back. As I walk from the bar, I see a yellow cab then I wave my hand and give my address. Huh, I think it wasn’t hard at all. In the cab, I am thinking about the day, about this time. I spent a day here and the things that stood out were the inconveniences. No Google maps, no Uber, no music, no googling every little thought. I dreaded the lack of Uber but I made it work. I wonder if the inconveniences would disappear if I spent more time here but the joys of a more social life would remain. I wonder if the shared media consumption would mean we would have at least one thing to bond over. But we do have shared media: sports, book clubs, popular movies on Netflix, Stranger Things, Taylor Swift. I think the friction in social connections is the lack of friction in all other forms of entertainment. It’s the abundance and ease of entertainment that makes the social world hard because people are not always entertaining.
I reach home, set the alarm and go to bed. The next morning I wake up to the sound of the alarm and instinctually yell, Siri, stop! The alarm stops.