No Brain Space
One of my favourite writers, Craig Mod in his Ridgeline Newsletter:
The modern smartphone, laden with the corporate ecosystem pulsing underneath its screen, robs us of this feeling, conspires to keep us from “true” fullness. The swiping, the news cycles, the screaming, the idiocy — if anything destroys a muse, it’s this.
This is it. This is the thing I’ve been circling for years without quite nailing it down. The presence of a smartphone doesn’t just distract us. It actively works against any sense of being satisfied. That feeling of having enough, of being complete in a moment — the phone murders it.
I’ve written about needing barriersto protect myself from my worst habits. About babysitting myself like a child who can’t be trusted. After 40-plus years, I know exactly what I’m like. Give me unfettered access to my phone and I’ll disappear into it. Not doing anything meaningful. Just looking. Refreshing. Checking. The dopamine loop that goes nowhere.
There’s no room left for thoughts to develop, for ideas to form, for anything resembling grace. Just the constant churn of content. The next post. The next story. The next bit of outrage or cleverness or whatever keeps you scrolling.
I felt this most clearly when I spent that time getting uncomfortable on purpose. Taking breaks from the phone. Sitting with boredom. Turns out when you stop feeding the machine, you remember what it feels like to think properly. To have actual space between stimulus and response.
You can see it in how people talk to each other now. How quickly everything becomes a fight. How little patience anyone has for complexity or nuance. The phone trains us to react, not reflect. To consume, not create.
This is why I keep trying to say no to more things. To put distance between me and the constant feed. Not succeeding most of the time, but at least trying. At least recognising that the thing in my pocket wants me hollow and reactive and endlessly scrolling. For me to live a full life I need space in my brain and that happens with time away from the screen. But I always come back.