Or we might get boiled…
February 2026
Since I’m not under a rock (yet!) I am reading about slow living, going back to analog and all the things that are coming out of this conversation.
I’m not jumping on the bandwagon – get stuck on a backroad in the middle of the night and I want all the cell phones. There really are many positives to technology – like the fact that I’m writing this here and you are reading it – we get to share and realize we are not as alone as we thought.
I do think that these concepts though have something essential at their core. And that I think we can’t be reminded of enough.
Some of the (gestures wildly, dancing like a wild baboon) “stuff” we’ve accepted, welcomed and started to run our lives on has serious consequences. These long term consequences might be bad and/or change us for the worse.
For those old enough to remember a world without the internet and the devices all over the place: I think we might have forgotten what we expected out of all of this internet/technology vs. what the reality of it has become.
In the early days, my impression was that all of this started as a way to get around the system. There weren’t going to be gatekeepers around information anymore. You could question and challenge long-standing beliefs. We could be more connected across areas and times. It was about thinking about AND doing things differently (or maybe that was just me?)
Now, the fact is that doing anything outside the internet or technology, that is the new way we are getting around the system.
Because what we expected from this technology is not what we received.
We are the frogs being slowly boiled in the water.
Other examples from recent (too close for comfort) history:
Cigarettes. They were always awful – there were no positives to health (minus the fact that you could actually take a break and walk away from work). Everyone did it – it was weird if you didn’t. It was an accepted fact of society.
Processed Foods. Wow, what we are finding out now. Let’s be real, we kinda always knew that “silicone dioxide, Red 40, Blue 1, synthetic dyes, TBHQ, DATEM, phosphoric acid, caramel coloring, etc.” weren’t actual foods. If we thought long enough and had access to anything other than these foods (hello 80’s and 90’s), we probably wouldn’t have eaten them. But when that’s the options in the stores all around you? When that is the best and/or only choice? Again, you do what everyone else is doing.
Technology isn’t any different and we know it. We just don’t know how to stop it.
We are connected to all the things, all the time. Trying to break away from it is like looking for a potato in a convenience store filled with “food” (which is anything but). Even though you may be right, you are the one that seems crazy and out of touch. What choice do we really have?
Still, there are always those people that push back and embrace the “crazy.” (I love you all!) They are ready to be the truth tellers and make (seemingly) radical choices. They are willing to pay the price and make the trade off. These usually mean either spending more money, more time and/or more energy to get the “this” instead of the more common and easily accessible “that.”
I’ve been looking at my diet – ALL the things I take in physically, mentally, emotionally. Even as someone who is a Luddite in her circle, I make some really tough choices. I lose a lot of convenience and find that I am doing things in a much harder way – sometimes I’m okay with that and other times I’m not.
I get angry and resentful that here I am trying to make things better for me and others yet all it seems like I’m slipping all around a mud pit for hours on end trying to get out – while getting heckled.
Still, there are times that technology just “productivity washes” the activities you would already be doing. I have found after cutting some things out, that they actually didn’t serve me in any way. I realized they made life harder. I had this weird thought that I had to use them to optimize and be “the better version of myself.” (Ugh – are we all over this now? Can we be?)
I found out I could just live my life and not use that technology as a part of it.
Other small rant: Stop with the streaks for logging in to apps. It’s not healthy. It’s not good. I don’t care how supportive or helpful that app is. Apps should be celebrating when you take a day off from the screen. Can someone come up with that please?
And then there are times that technology really does help and makes things simpler. There are times I delete an app and redownload because it does actually help my life. Others I will swear off for years and forget that they never helped. Soon I find myself redownloading it again thinking “this time is different” (because I totally forgot why it was bad in the first place). And then re-remembering and deleting it all over again swearing I will remember next time. I probably won’t. I’m human.
We are human. That is what we need reminding of, that’s what is behind all this slow living, analog stuff.
We make our choices. Some of those choices are to focus on the things without technology. (While we are realizing we need to protect ourselves more than we want to acknowledge – we have to see things as they really are and it’s not pretty.)
We get to decide where we want to spend our time, what we want to ingest – in all forms and bring into our lives.
Even with the good stuff – too much is still too much.
It was time for me to get ruthless and decide what I will listen to, watch, and read in the coming year. Some of it was simple and easy. A deletion here and a change in settings there. AND some good and wonderful things from good, amazing, worthy of all the time, energy and money people had to go as well.
Humans are turning back to focusing on what they want to consume. Yay! Let’s not take in everything and anything that is offered – on the internet or otherwise. I’m all for this trend as long as the intention behind it is choice and not another bait and switch as technology has done for us.
You aren’t a better person because you are listening to records instead of playing music from your phone. You aren’t a worse person because you use an e-reader instead of buying books. We are all just trying to make the best choices we can with the information that we can process at the time.
Everything, everything, everything has consequences. Good and bad. Some we are aware of, some we have to block to keep functioning, some we could never foresee. In a repeating circle. Over and over, throughout all of our lifetimes.
Someone’s technology is saving their life while that same technology is slowly undermining the life of someone else.
That can be true – always. It’s what and how we decide and how we move and change as we see new information and see how our lives are changing. And having the composure and strength to break out of what might be common behavior for the sake of our own lives.