Some Sundays, Liliana and I go out without our cell phones, because they sold us the cell phone as freedom, but it’s actually a longer chain. Be careful: in the name of freedom, freedom itself is often curtailed, as the people of Madrid, the willing and frequent victims of this deception, know well.
Therefore, Liliana and I, in our attempt to free ourselves from the global network, at least for a while, must break the rigidity of dependency, break out of the perverted logic Scrolling Infinity and facing the infinity of life, a few hours of disconnection from what is happening far away and connection with the here and now in the city. Everything that happens, is happening now just a few meters away: the zebra crossing, the friendly dog, the homeless lady, the new… bakery Klonik (a trendy snack), the fleeting scent that brings back memories of 15 years ago. Sometimes separation creates a background of anxiety, and other times it generates a deep feeling of peace.
We are addicted to Smartphone And we try to hide it from our daughter: we want her to spend more time reading Michel de Montaigne (inventor of modern common sense, which is in great demand) than looking at Instagram, so that she will do the same, as that wonderful cartoon by Flavita Banana showed. But this effort makes our addiction more apparent, when we feel stressed about not being able to look at our dreaded cell phone or when we catch ourselves checking the screen in the bathroom or behind the door, hiding in the dark, like secret drug addicts.
For us, the ongoing technological revolution has captured us at an opportune time, namely adolescence, to remember what the world would have been like without it. Smartphones We are aware of the contemporary delirium. I still remember with amazement the first time I communicated directly with my friend Alvaro via Yahoo! Apostle, after a few beers: It seemed like a miracle.
Little by little came other miracles: blogs, networks, YouTube, Spotify, and these phones (why do we still call them phones?) that are smarter than us. But those born now, like our daughter, have nothing to compare them to, and in a few decades there will be no one left who remembers that you can live without the brain colonized by this happy artifact.
That’s why we try to show little Candela what cell phones there are, but not too much.
Our first digital detox was a trip to Avila in 2019 (I wrote a chronicle). The choice of destination was impeccable because beautiful-walled Avila is a city of mysticism, where Teresa of Jesus, Juan de la Cruz or Moises de León, the Eminence of Kabbalah, lived, and leaving a cell phone at home necessarily helps to connect with divinity: no one talks to God via WhatsApp (whoever God is).
It was strange to see how we were methodically reaching into our pockets in search of the lost device or feeling imaginary vibrations as if they were calling us from another dimension (could that be the call of divinity?) We were forced to ask passers-by for directions and look at the time on the bell towers. We focus like never before on eating revolconas potatoes with torizzinos.
All the information in the world wasn’t at the push of a button: what a relief.
Instead of watching Netflix movies, we consulted the print press every morning lobby From the hotel at 10 pm. We were in front of the TV to watch a movie on a linear channel, taking advantage of the commercial breaks to go to the bathroom, as in Good old times. The truth is, it was funny. We thought about repeating that experience on other trips, but never did. “What if something happens?” We became convinced, as if before Smartphone Nothing will happen at all.
There was a time when life was like this (here and now, etc.) and the Internet was trapped in computers, a local area network: one had to go to a terminal to connect and browse for a while and after that time real life continued on its course. Now life between screens has become more real, we live on the Internet, and the Internet is dismembering and dismembering us: my attention span has decreased so much that when I try to read (and my job largely consists of reading), every three sentences my brain desperately needs a new stimulus, such as the one that the networks provide at every moment. Dopamine microdose: a He lovesA early Horny, irresistible recipe Burger crushAmadeo Lados does Burpee.
But we will win.