Yes, there is a tension between how in minimalism we want less physical stuff whereas how among smartphone haters we have this tendency to accrue a bunch of single-use items.
A minimalist might ask “why should I need a shelf full of paper books, a computer, a game console, a radio, an anything when I can just do all that on one single glowing rectangle?”
The problem is that for some of us that world of constant online became just so toxic that we couldn’t handle it. Both on a personal level and on a societal level. On the society level it’s like The World of Ideas and Dreams have been increasingly claimstaked and proprietarized and vendorized. Appified. People aren’t on networks anymore, they are on specific web forums owned by gigacorporations. I don’t want that.
On a personal level it’s just not fun anymore. I really treasure being able to walk away from the internet. Sickenly enough the city I live in and love is destroying that by putting up video ads on huge screens IRL, outside and indoors. It’s like how a swiss army knife seems like a good idea until you realize you might want to be able to bring a compass or a pair of tweezers or whatever to a lot of places where knives can’t go.
Our perception as smartphone haters is that our current paradigm for a multitasking device is fundamentally broken both on a physical level (overly glowy screen, lack of tactical buttons, fiddly and clumsy), on a phychological level (addictive dark patterns and timesinks), and on a corporate-ownership level. Your smartphone isn’t really yours, nor does it belong your community. It’s on loan from Apple/Google. They can shut it down.
Since we have that view of smartphones, there’s no wonder that we want to get away from it.
I get how a lot of this comes across just neurotic craziness on the part of me and my smartphone-hating peers. Nostalgia for the sake of nostalgia as a refuge, as a delulu response to the future-shock of the world of today.
I admit that I’m diving deep into looking backwards in search of comfort. It’s also a way to try to step “sideways” for new ideas on how we can get out of this mess we’re in. Lately I’ve been getting into reading older science fiction (or books like A Pattern Language), and writing from a perspective of what could we have instead of smartphones. How can we keep in touch with the people we know IRL, how can we find our way through a bustling city, and how can we learn things? And what is the best way for us to dream and fantasize in a way that supports our creativity rather than quashes it? How can we face reality in a way that lets us help foster a better tomorrow without drowning us in a poison soma of comforting fake distractions?
Now, it’s a lived reality for some people… for very few people, that the smartphone is a great tool for them. They don’t have any WhatsApp or Facebook or other proprietary hellscapes. They can turn it off and put it away when they have a friend or family member around and bring it out when it’s time to do meaningful things like catching up with correspondence or looking things up or reading. They have a screen that their eyes can handle. They have a way of entering text that’s fast and efficient. I mean… good for them, but that’s not most people.