The Dumb Phone: In Search of Lost Life

At the turn of the millennium the powerful made us a promise: modern technology would usher in a new era of progress. - Magazine Non Grata and Marigold

The president spoke of liberty spreading by cell phone, and the internet’s father proclaimed its goal was to “serve humanity.”...

Yet, through the intervening decades, these technologies have evolved into monstrous versions of their earlier incarnations. 

• Devices of the recent past were tools with a singleness of purpose. 
• Word processors, MP3 players, cameras, camcorders ----- they gave you a feeling of focus, mission, and possibility. 
• Now they have coalesced into the iPhone, which sends you spinning like a schizophrenic top across a universe of information...

With our unblinking attention we sustain them, the Algorithm’s fish hook so deep in our brains that we’ve forgotten it’s there...