A reader recently sent me a Substack post they thought I might like. “I bought my kids an old-school phone to keep smartphones out of their hands while still letting them chat with friends,” the post’s author, Priscilla Harvey, writes. “But it’s turned into the sweetest, most unexpected surprise: my son’s new daily conversations with his grandmothers.”
As Harvey continues, her son has adopted the habit of stretching out on the couch, talking to his grandmother on a retro rotary-style phone, the long cable stretching across the room. “There’s no scrolling, no distractions, no comparisons, no dopamine hits to chase,” she notes. “Instead he is just listening to stories, asking questions, and having the comfort of knowing someone who loves him is listening on the other end of the line.”
The post’s surface message is one about kids and technology. Harvey, defiantly pushed back against the culture of weary resignation surrounding our youth and phone use, and discovered something sacred.
But I think there’s a more general idea lurking here as well.
The telephone, in its original hard-plastic, curly-wired form, is an example of what we might call an additive technology. Its goal is to take something you value—like talking to people you know—and make this activity easier and more accessible. You want to talk to your grandmother? Dial her number, and her voice fills your ear, clear and immediate. The phone seeks strictly to add value to your life.
Now compare this to Instagram. The value proposition is suddenly muddled. You might enjoy aspects of this app: the occasional diversion, the rare update from a cherished friend. But with these joys come endless sorrows as well. The scrolling can become worryingly addictive, while the content tends to devolve into a digital slurry—equal parts mind-numbing and anxiety-inducing.
Unlike the straightforward benefits of a landline, it soon becomes clear that this tool doesn’t have your best interests as its primary goal. It’s using you; making itself just compelling enough that you’ll pick it up, at which point it can monetize every last ounce of your time and data. It’s what we might call an extractive technology, as it seeks to extract value from you instead of providing it.
My philosophy of techno-selectionism builds on a simple belief: we must become significantly more critical and choosy about the tools we allow into our lives. This goal becomes complicated when we filter our choices based solely on whether something can plausibly offer us any benefit. Nearly everything passes that low bar.
But if we distinguish between additive and extractive technologies, clarity emerges. The key is not whether that app, device, or site is flashy or potentially cool. What matters is whose interest it ultimately serves. If it’s not our own, why bother? Life’s too short to miss time on the phone with grandma.
Hi Cal. I’ve been rethinking my relationship with social media but as a food blogger the general advice these days is to be more active on social, be your authentic self seeing how we now have to compete with AI along with competitors. How would you suggest I work my way around that?
Thank you so much
I’m in a similar boat as a pastor. I seem to have to have an online presence somewhere to reach people. I have greatly reduced my access. But it’s hard to find the right balance.
Love this!
I am Gen Z and have been addicted to smartphones since I was a child. I feel like it’s affected my mental development and attention span.
For the past year, I’ve been reducing the amount of digital tools I use and the amount of online spaces I participate in. I’m surprised at how much easier my life has been and how much more things I’ve been able to accomplish. Grateful to read your blog regularly!
Also, have you seen Shanspeare’s video essay, “Is the Internet Ruining Community?” It’s really great, and I feel like it grafts onto this post really well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ivd8so3vWjQ
Hi Cal,
I absolutely agree to all of these. There might be an occasional moment of usefulness of these apps but generally that’s just once in a while. While most of the times, its really exhausting and fills us with sheer noise.
For instance, I think I am addicted to messaging apps, believing that I might miss out on conversations, which could potentially be important. But, now I am coming to a realization that, if it were to be that important, probably, I would get a call rather than being texted. And in reality too, most of the times, they’re just emojis being sent in chat groups.
What’s even harder is, these temptations come in very subtle ways. For example, when I’m working on my computer, after every half an hour of working, my mind says to me ‘You deserve a break, go on, open up a new tab and watch some videos for 5 minutes!’. Surely, it goes on and on.
I’m really thinking of re-carving my digital landscape.
I work in IT in China.
In my country, WeChat dominates everyday life. It’s as if you don’t have a social life unless you use it.
But I still refuse to use it. I hate WeChat. It’s like a slot machine.
I need to work hard and think creatively to advance my career. Not cheap dopamine.
Many years ago when my sister and I discussed social media, she commented that “Being addicted to anything means losing freedom”. I still remember it as freedom is important for her and for me. I suppose it does not necessarily have to be things like smoking, gambling, social media but also others less harmful e.g. coffee, tea, a special brand. One’s life is less flexible when they are glued to something too much. [Healthy hobby is another thing]. Interestingly it seems that nobody is addicted to clean H20.
Inspired by Buddha’s experience when he recalled his childhood, I have recently set Saturdays as no screen days – no laptop, no TV, no cell phone – I turn off my cell phone on Friday evening and only turn it on on Sunday morning. I recalled my life when I was 9-10. I don’t want to wait until I retire to give myself that treat. The only thing that made me nervous was any emergency with my family that I may not be informed timely. But so far so good. I am excited to see outcomes of this experiment and lifestyle change. I have already seen that my day is longer and more relaxing. When I am back to in the internet on Sundays, engagement seems to be more meaningful and I better distinguish quality of different media sources.
I once read a quote like – To say No to one thing, you need to say Yes (loudly) to another thing.
Good shabbos!
Hi in the alternate you may switch to a Keypad phone, in this way you will remain connected and no internet. Nokia Keypad phones offers bluetooth sync ..so latest contacts can be sync. I got idea of this from this blog and sharing again
I agree with the sentiment for sure, but personally I have kept my landline muted for sixteen years because the incessant robocallers, spam, mentally ill et al that otherwise dial my phone dozens of times per day make it almost impossible to do anything but mute it. I’m in the UK BTW.
Any improvement to my life it would otherwise bring is significantly offset by how archaic the system is, IMO. If there was a mutual consent system like that of friend codes on Nintendo consoles, that could change things. For me, the landline is absolutely irrelevant. I also have to mute my cellphone despite having call screening from Google. If it works for you, I’m glad.
Your additive/extractive framework has been a compass for my own work, but I think there’s a missing axis that might make it even stronger. Digital Minimalism was pivotal for me in reclaiming my time from unskilful tech use, and the lens you describe has stayed with me. I agree entirely that Instagram is extractive (as is most mainstream social media), but I’m not convinced whole categories like the smartphone are inherently so. Much of the harm, I think, comes from the lag between technical capability and ethical maturity (as with Oppenheimer’s bomb, which embodied both destruction and the seeds of civilian power).
As an example, AI presents a similar fork. For many, it’s extractive because it replaces thinking: “write this for me, plan this for me.” But it can be profoundly additive when approached as a disciplined collaborator, slowing us down, deepening reflection, and helping us ask “what am I not seeing?” One of my current projects explores AI as a contemplative technology, designed not to accelerate, but to enrich the pace and depth of thought.
Could your additive/extractive framework grow to account for this axis of use ethics: not just what a tool was designed to do, but how we choose to engage with it?
Plus the old school telephone lasts almost forever. Pure sustainability VERSUS planed obsolescence 🙂