Smartphones as Capitalist Creatures
Did a friend forward this to you? Subscribe here!
From Dumb Phone City to Facebook Headquarters
The south coast of Puerto Rico
This week, I’d like to introduce you all to my good friend, Theano, and one of the only people I know who doesn’t own a smartphone. She mainly uses her candy-bar style “dumb phone” for texting and making weekly phone calls to her parents who live in another state. Living in a small town, arranging social engagements isn’t too difficult and she finds that her “dumb phone” provides her with all the communication options that she needs.
“If I didn’t talk to my parents,” she says, “I probably wouldn’t bother even having a cell phone.”
Although Theano is quite content with her dumb phone, her world was shook on her first day as an intern at Facebook. “We were given smartphones—a Google Pixel 3,” she says. “I have no idea why.”
Despite her disdain for smartphones, Theano threw herself into the experience—taking photographs, using the map app, chatting with her family back in Miami and sending them pics of her life in Mendo Park, CA.
“At the beginning, I was less conscious about how I was using it, but I started to feel gross walking around on my phone. It didn’t feel right.”
It also felt weird not being present. Theano explains: “With a smartphone, you can remove yourself mentally from wherever you are. In my normal life, I’m in the place where I’m at. But the experience of being on a smartphone while standing around, whether it’s scrolling through Facebook or reading the news, it’s a very different feeling—this totality of removing myself from the world in an immersive way.”
As with the rest of us smartphone users, Theano has become acquainted with the feeling of unlocking your phone to look at a message from a friend and getting pulled into the vortex. “I hate that the opportunity to get taken away from where I am is so available.”
In her normal “dumb phone” life, she searches her route before leaving the house. Now, with maps always at her fingertips, she finds that she’s gotten lazy. “I don’t bother remembering the route,” she says, “but what if I lose my phone or my battery dies? I’ve come to rely so much on this thing now.”
Theano is used to living in cities where she can get around easily by walking, biking, or taking public transport. But being in Mendo City, which is completely removed from the urban environment, is a whole different situation. “Facebook, Google and Amazon are all around here, and it feels like things are organized around having a smartphone. It’s very poorly serviced on public transit and most of us interns don’t have cars.”
And so, people rely on their phones to request services—ordering rides, take-out, and groceries. “I have the impression that this is the norm here. It’s a community of hyper tech-savvy people and they use these services without thinking about the hidden cost. All they see is dollar cost. Whoever is being exploited, that cost doesn’t not occur to them as a problem they should think about.”
But this is something that Theano thinks a lot about. “The gig economy makes me feel uncomfortable,” she says, “and I try not to use those services.” She had never ordered a Lyft before her internship at Facebook, although she has asked others to do so on her behalf on very rare occasions. “Every time I get into a Lyft, I feel guilty. I know these people aren’t getting the benefits as employees and aren’t getting paid what they should be paid.”
She feels the same way about using Amazon. “I don’t want to support Amazon’s accumulation of wealth at the tax payer’s expense.” So Theano goes to real stores to find what she needs. If she can’t find it, she’ll start looking online, but if Amazon is her only option, then she simply won’t make the purchase. “I’m speaking from a place of privilege,” she admits. “I don’t have esoteric hobbies and I have the time to go out into the world and get these things myself.”
For Theano, smartphones are innately tied to capitalism. She equates smartphones to cars and flip phones to bikes. “When you get into a car and turn it on, you’re default engaging with capitalism. It’s the same thing with using a smartphone. Every time your phone tells Google where you are, you’re contributing to surveillance capitalism. When you open an app, you’re generating statistics. Even before you start spending money, your info and habits are getting sold. You’re participating in this economy whether you like it or not.”
Theano admits that deciding against using smartphones altogether is the wrong approach, but we should also be conscious about the capitalist system that we’re engaging with and decide whether it’s good or bad. In Europe, for example, they have strict measures to protect people’s privacy and put reins on these massive corporations. In America, we have no such laws.
But having a smartphone hasn’t been all bad. “I wasn’t expecting how much it would mean socially,” she says. “I’m more inspired to take pictures and send them to my family. It’s easier to engage with people who are not present with me, which is really nice.” Like many of us, Theano is trying to find the smartphone balance: how to have the good stuff without the other stuff.
As of a week ago, Theano’s internship ended and along with it, her brief smartphone affair. When I asked her how she was feeling about giving it up, she was more than thrilled. Bye, Felicia!
Tip of the Week
I've said it already but I'll say it again -- send a postcard, write a letter, go online and buy some forever stamps. The US Postal Service needs our help!
Digital Life Around the Web
Influencers catch fire during coronavirus -- and struggle to do the right thing.
Badass Nurse is the meme of Our Times.
A poem composed of first lines from emails received during COVID-19.
Very cool graphs about how we're consuming the internet during quarantine.
If you enjoy this newsletter, please
Thanks for reading!