the end of our extremely online era.

Osteria in Ravello

I think we're at the precipice of a technological revolution.

I think this whole smartphone scrolling, content consuming, prolific posting, all day everyday screen time, being extremely online thing is going to fade.

It's an addiction, no doubt. It started out, like any addiction, for the newness and excitement and thrill. But now we're in the ugly, yellow-skin, wheezing and scratching phase. Constantly, mindlessly, compulsively reloading the feed. Overstimulated and overwhelmed. A thousand feet underwater. Scrambling to stay "on top" of it all. Swamped by a battalion of urgent emails and a bombardment of nagging notifications, that fight for every spare moment of our time. Uncomfortably numb, but praying the next flick of the thumb will be the one. Feeling we're on the outside looking in, gazing at some inner circle where real life is happening. But still staying home at night, mesmerized by the blue glow of a little screen, sinking deeper into the certainty of our utter aloneness.

Getting a hundred likes but still feeling unloved.

Having a thousand followers but no one to call if our car breaks down.

Watching a million videos but barred from being an actor who can work to change things.

Walk down the street. Heads are chained to a screen. Hands clutch onto smartphones, swinging in stride, like a natural extension of the arm. Everyone is perennially plugged in and zealously zoned out.

The bomb has hit and the effects are everywhere. Depression rates are up. People are lonelier than ever. Pubs and libraries and playgrounds, once flourishing social spheres, are abandoned, shuttered.

No one, I would argue, is having a good time. People are fed up. Burnt out and worn thin. People, really, are tired of being so goddamn terminally online.

I think we will witness a reversal. As a culture, we will wake up to the fact social media is an addiction, engineered to drown us in more and more dopamine until we stop feeling entirely. We will unplug. And we will return to life.

It will be gradual, slow, staggered. But it will happen. It has to. I don't think it could get any more extreme.

I think the era of orbiting our daily existence around a device in our hands will be just that: an era. And it will go the way of smoking and top hats with monocles and communism. Once powerful and pervasive, impossible to imagine disappearing. Now, mostly dead. Receded into a mere memory¹.

And I think we won't realize how sick we were, how sick and sad and confused it makes us, until after it's over. We will look back on these times with a compassionate sadness. Shake our heads at how ignorant and naive we all were, to give up so much for so little. And wonder why we ever cared so much about strangers on the Internet.

Already, you can hear murmurs. Whispers. Glimmers of hope.

Already, you can hear the cries, echoing out from the emptiness inside, from people who want to reclaim their life. Who realize there must be more to life. To being human.

Already, it's happening.

My dream, my burning desire for the future, is that we'll return to life. See how much bigger, more vivid, and magnificent it is than an internet connection and a glowing box of color and noise. See how things get secretly sweeter when they're not shared. See how the trees and rocks and streams are waiting for us.

I think we’ll learn. That we'll find more connection in communal meals than any number of comments and likes. That a quiet walk in the woods is more nourishing than watching someone else’s trip through Tokyo. That talking to our Mom or Dad or best friend is infinitely better than listening to Tim Ferriss' inflamed ego on air. That things look better in real life than on a screen.

People are hungry to experience life for themselves. To experience awe, seek wonder, observe mystery. To stop caring about the manicured, magical, made-up lives of others. To refuse to optimize their life for how it looks to others and instead how it feels to them.

People are starving. To run in the dark across grassy fields holding sizzling sparklers up to the stars, dive into the deep cold blue sea, curl up on the couch with a good book, a big mug of tea, and a nest of blankets near a crackling fireplace. Return to the pure presence of childhood. Experiencing for the sake of experiencing. Unaccountable to show the results of an afternoon of adventures to anyone. Too busy living to care about turning experience into sharable shards of content to amuse strangers.

I hope we look at social media one day as we look at cigarettes now: "You still scroll? Really?? Like… don't you know how bad it is for you?"

And smartphones return to their proper proportion: as tools to enhance our lives, not these pocket-sized touch screen pacifiers.

*

I've spent the last three weeks living off-grid in Newfoundland. Surrounded by forest. A symphony of birds and the smell of salt. A stone's throw from the Atlantic, where humpbacks glide through the sapphire water, showing only their smooth wet backs, like polished rock.

Most days, my phone is off, my laptop shut. I check messages from family in the evenings, and attempt to write some mornings.

The days are slow, the evenings long. I'm reading more than ever. Work feels good and effort is a joy. We never seem to hurry but get a lot done. Conversations come alive. Sleep is deep.

It feels like reclaiming ownership for my life that I'd somehow lost.

The more I reduce my technology use, the more profoundly human and precariously alive I feel.

I'm learning that life is meant to be lived through the senses. That happiness, peace, and deep satisfaction is far simpler and closer and more radical than I dared to imagine². That it's right in front of me. Right. There. If I only risk to reach out and grab it. And chuckle afterward because it was always there, all along.

*

I might be dead wrong. About the end of our online era. Maybe it'll only accelerate. Maybe in a decade everyone will be wearing their Apple goggles to buy condos in the metaverse with their Ethereum and livestream their trip to Costco, as AI runs half the economy and writes all of our books. 

In the short term pessimists look smart, but optimists move the world.

I hope I look pretty dumb right now.

Off to read,

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👋 what i’ve been up to:

• Works and days. Made a timber garden bed to grow our own greens. Fishing for cod on weekends. Finished building the floor for my tent, installed a small wood stove, and built a four-foot bookshelf. With a small camp stove and a pot, I can finally make coffee in the mornings.

• Humpback whales have been visiting the small cove the hermitage overlooks. Many evenings are spent watching them glide through the water and come up for air in tremendous bursts.

✍️ quote i’m pondering:

British author C.S. Lewis on the nature of change:

"Isn't it funny how day by day nothing changes, but when we look back everything is different."

📸 photos i took:

July in Newfoundland.

1. Generally, this is how change works. Change is massively evident if we look back at history, even 100 years ago, but we default assume the future will look similar to our current state. This also works on the individual level. It’s obvious how much I’ve changed over the past year, but I think the current version of Tommy will stay the same.

2. I think happiness, real happiness, is quite close to embodied living. Perhaps the same.