Fabio Manganiello on Nostr: I'm planning to get rid of my smartphone, even though I've been a smartphone ...

I'm planning to get rid of my smartphone, even though I've been a smartphone enthusiast and developer even before the first iPhone.

This time it's not because of tech: it's because of people.

My wife spends most of her day scrolling on Instagram rather than with me or our kid, without even realizing it. I see people in restaurants talking a couple of words to each other, and if the conversation drops for two seconds they immediately pull out their phones, as if they could not withstand a couple of seconds without being constantly entertained. I'm currently in a surf hostel in Portugal: I used to love these places because people have so many chances to randomly meet and have a conversation, go for a surf session together or play music, but nowadays these living rooms are filled with people scrolling on their phones, as if the latest TikTok act was more important than the human being in front of them trying to have a conversation. I've been playing my guitar literally in front of a bunch of zombies scrolling on their phones in these days, who would just randomly lift their phones every now and then to take a short video of me that could fit into a reel, and then just go back and fiddle with their screens. What's the point of coming to a live performance, if the live performance becomes just the few seconds that you share with your "friends" on social media, and everything else is self-entertainment and scrolling that you could also do in your own room?

As somebody who has always strived to avoid screens when other people are around me, and try to have interactions with them instead, I feel so hurt by what we've become. I feel depressed because no matter what you do, a screen will always have higher priority over you. You'll always have to try and be more entertaining than what is out there on Instagram and TikTok, or the people around you will just pull out their phones and ignore you. I've reached the point where, if I want to reach out to somebody, it's become easier to post a story on Instagram and wait for their reaction rather than talk to them in person. And the few sporadic face-to-face conversations have become so dry. "How's your kid?" "Very well, he's learned how to play this song on piano too!" "Oh yeah, I've seen it on your Instagram story. Cool". End of the conversation.

Big Tech has knowingly turned into such zombies by messing up our dopamine cycles, providing us with a continuous stream of rewards throughout the whole day if we scroll a lot or post a lot, turning our lives into an endless game. They deserve to be punished for that, and those who developed these algorithms ought to spend their lives in prison just like those who knowingly provide people with hard drugs. Tech created this problem, and tech should solve it. However, all of this is unlikely to happen any time soon. So, for the best of our species, and for how I envision human beings thriving on this planet, I'll play my small part and give up on my smartphone. Hoping to inspire more people to do the same.