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🥳 How Kind turned 1 month old over the last week. I've been so inspired by all of the responses from folks like you so far. Thank you for being here and being a part of the conversation <3

Through the looking glass phone screen

Yes, I'm talking about our relationships with our phones.

Stay with me. I know we're tired of thinking about it. We know it's a problem. We know that scrolling for hours on our phones is making us unhappy. We know our attention span is (probably?) permanently shot.

But we gotta talk about it.

And I know you're probably reading this on your phone right now. Whether that's true or not, stop reading for a moment and take 5 min to stand and stretch. Looking away from any and all screens.

It's ok, I'll be here waiting for you when you're done.

...

Oh, welcome back.

How did it feel? How did it feel to take 5 min for yourself? Choosing what to do with your time instead of having a screen dictate it?

I've noticed more and more that the content of my phone can drastically alter my mood. For good and for bad.

If I check my phone in the morning when I'm still waking up, I gamble with whatever will be there waiting for me on the screen.

It can be a loving message from a friend who was thinking of you. A family member sending a funny meme. An email containing your favorite newsletter (coughcough).

And it can also be a text that takes you out of the mood. That makes you sad. Anxious. Angry. It can be a notification from a news outlet with a depressing headline. It can be a rejection email from that job you applied for.

Or even worse (?), there can be... nothing waiting for you when you check your phone. No new messages. No emails. No notifications. And in that instance, the device that was meant to be your portal to the world, to stay connected, makes you feel lonely. Even more isolated. Rejected.

All it takes is the right content, and your entire day is set. Your entire mood dictated by what your phone shows you.

I've been trying to break that pattern by setting consistent, intentional times to check my phone.

  • Wait at least an hour after waking up to check it.
  • Putting it in another room for the rest of the morning, allowing myself to check it again around lunchtime.
  • Checking it after work, like a nice treat after adulting.
  • Use it for the last time at least an hour before bed. (No doomscrolling in bed!)

Is this plan perfect? No. Does this mean I check my phone only 4 times a day? At least currently, no. But what it does for me is put into perspective just how present our phones are in our lives. How my phone has so much power over me. Over my well-being. Over my presence. Over my life.

We have been conditioned to mindlessly fill up every waking, idle moment with our phones. For the next week, try noticing just how many times a day you reach for your phone. Instead of scrolling while waiting in line at bank, try to look around and take in your environment.

We are surrounded by our people. By our community. But we're too busy connecting with our phones instead.

We're being bombarded by stimuli, presented live, in full color, through one of the greatest innovations in history.

I'm not going to deny the benefits of having access to the world at your fingertips, wherever you are. Phones do wonderful things. Phones lead us to wonderful moments in our lives.

But we were not meant to be reachable 24/7. Not to go full back-in-my-day mode, but maybe some of you can remember those days. Playing with your friends around your neighborhood, your parents simply trusting that you'd find your way back home.

We were not meant to stay connected with the world 24/7. Yes, connecting is wonderful. The internet is wonderful. And it lets us connect on a scale that was not even imaginable for past generations. And it's necessary if we are to stay connected with people who live in other states, other countries.

We were not meant to stare at a screen for hours upon hours, especially in the presence of other people. I've begun to notice it more and more. I walk around, and it seems like 9 in 10 people are walking past me with their necks tense and contorted in unnatural ways - without noticing life going on around them. I see more and more drivers scrolling while they drive. I see people gathered in parks and restaurants and live shows, looking into the infinite void of their phone screens. And the void looks back, pulling you in with the promise of infinite content.

Have you been feeling it too? That gnawing desire to reclaim your attention? Break free from the control of your phone? From any screen? And focus back on the tangible, the physical, the analog? Those are the things that ground us.

There's more to life beyond those few inches between your face and your phone.

Your eyes will thank you. And your neck.

Being part of the problem (an existential crisis)

As a tech worker, I've spent years working on things-people-will-consume-through-a-screen. At first, I was completely excited about contributing to the field. To thinking of new and fun ways people could use their phones.

But I've become more, well, jaded as I've faced the reality of designing in a capitalist society. I've struggled with my personal ethics and concerns about what the tech experiences I'm helping create are doing to people. I realized that a lot of the work I was contributing to was essentially "how do we get more people to stay in our app, scrolling on their phone?". Aka how do we keep people glued to a screen for longer.

Whenever I raised these concerns, they were waved away with people saying things like "we're simply trying to create more delight for the user" or "we're trying to get them to engage with our content in longer sessions" or "we have to stay keep up with competition, and that means investing in short-form, TikTok/reels-style content ourselves".

(By the way - Isn't it weird that content is presented on something called a "feed"? Almost like that content is being forced into our mouths. Or that it is as essential to our beings as the food that sustains us.)

So this is part of the struggle I've had with my relationship to design. Since technology like phones is such an integral part of the work I do, I feel like I have no choice but to stay on top of the latest and greatest tech and software. Otherwise, how can I design for it?

But I've lost sight - design is more than the tools we use or the technology we design with and for. Any job, any craft - it's more than the things we use. Your life is more than what you do through a screen.

A screen is a means to an end. To scheduling time with a friend. To having a laugh watching a video. To looking at a photo that makes you smile. To listening to that song that helps you grieve.

To create and to connect is to be human, to be alive. And we do that with our phones and other technology, yes. But I believe we should reassess what role they play in our lives. And when we can actually put them down for a moment and look up from our screens, we'll see that the real content is all around us.

An extension of the individual self(ie)

While I was writing this How Kind, I came upon an issue of Mule Design's newsletter entitled Waves move energy without transporting the matter. I absolutely adore their writing, and this issue was particularly timely and relevant to what I wanted to chat about today.

I highly encourage you to read the whole issue, but here are some of the parts that resonated with me the most:

Every day when I bike to the studio, I see drivers driving with phones in their hands and eyes on their phones and pedestrians walking with phones in their hands and eyes on their phones and cyclists having phone calls while riding. [...]

We’ve reshaped the world around [the iPhone] and because it also feels like an extension of the individual self, we aren’t doing a great job reckoning with the systemic harms.

Everything the car did to the built environment, the iPhone has done our rooms and relationships. [...] And in the same way, while alternatives exist, it’s not going to suddenly go away.

We've rearranged society, economies, and labor relations around this device and its applications. [...] It’s increasingly difficult to participate in many aspects of society (arranging a playdate, ordering food, getting into a concert, banking, etc.) without one. Most interpersonal relationships are mediated through it one way or another.

The bottom line is that being online all the time wherever we are isn’t a lifestyle, it’s just how we live, and the option to have less of it is the luxury good now.

Heavy stuff, right?

I wanted to end today's newsletter by inviting you to reflect on your relationship with your phone and how it might feel like an extension of yourself. When did you last choose what to do on your phone? Rather than have your phone pull you into it? When did you last give yourself the grace of putting it down for a good while?

I acknowledge that not everyone has the same luxuries of turning off notifications or being away from their phone for very long or being able to consistently connect with other people through other means.

But by examining how we engage with the screens around us, we can be more intentional and meaningful about how we're spending our precious time on this blue marble.

☕️ I'd love to hear from you - what's your relationship like with your phone? What are things you've been doing to adjust your phone habits? Any thoughts or tips? Comment below or shoot me an email at howkind@mateusdasilva.com :-)

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🎷This was issue #6 of How Kind, spreading kindness, one newsletter at a time. See the full archive here.