So, three years have passed, which meant it was time for a new iPhone. I procrastinated for a bit before heading over to the store to get the deal done. They didn’t have any in stock so I had to wait, turned out to be about three weeks. It dawned on me that during those 3 weeks I didn’t think about the fact it was coming even once, didn’t really care. In fact, getting my 2025 edition of the Farmer’s Almanac yesterday was much more anticipated and satisfying, actually made me giddy.

Why was that?

My guess is that it’s inextricably linked to just now wrapping up the raising of a couple of boys, and of course, being heavily invested in their continued well-being. My wife and I fought valiantly for keeping (smart) phones out of their hands for as long as possible, but ultimately, it was a fingers in the dyke situation… so we pivoted to a constant drum beat of ways in which to use these (actually) amazing devices to ENHANCE life, rather than turn it into a daily slog of pursuing artificial dopamine hits from the vast realm of ways these could manifest.

Did we succeed?

Jury is obviously still out. There’s clues to be divined from both sides of potential outcomes, but sadly, I fear the worst. At my boys age, I woke every day to a ballistic pursuit of sex, drugs and rock ’n roll… my ‘screen time’ was zero minutes. They on the other hand, seem to hover around the 8 hour mark! True, a portion of that could be listening to music, checking the weather or going down wikipedia rabbit holes, but who am I kidding? There’s simply too many purchases of random, unnecessary shit that only an algorithm could be behind. My observations here could go on for another 20K words before taking another breath, but I promised to be ‘short’ right up there in the title.

So… Paleolithic brains, medieval institutions and god-like technology.

What could go wrong?