Should We Decouple Technology from Everyday Life?

I recently went to visit a friend in Washington, DC. Upon arriving at his swanky apartment building, I couldn’t help but notice that tenants have to use a smartphone to navigate all of the building’s features. If you want to get into the building, you have to scan your phone with an app. Use the elevator? An app. Get into your own apartment? Well, there’s an app for that, too; the apartment complex did not provide my friend with a physical key to his own unit. Such an apartment complex could never be occupied by an Orthodox Jew like me (since I cannot use my phone on Shabbat and the holidays), because at every turn the most essential tasks are accomplished with a smartphone. And, of course, they are not accomplished any better than normal, non-digital technology methods; keys are (usually) quite effective for unlocking doors. And keys don’t leave you stranded outside your apartment if your phone dies.

Digital technology has infiltrated all aspects of everyday living. It seems that there are fewer and fewer tasks the common person can complete without some reliance on digital technology. This is as true for leisure as it is for work; even those of us who work in professions that are not fundamentally “tech” fields, we always seem to be glancing at a screen to earn our daily bread. With the publication of Jonathan Haidt’s book on the shadow side of technology and social media, many are now realizing just how much our increasingly disembodied world is affecting our spiritual, mental, and relational health. Much of the current discourse about tech’s nefarious permeation throughout our lives has been in reference to children. But young adults are also suffering from its negative influences in much the same way, and then some. It is the difficulty in trying to decouple digital technology from mundane, daily living—from apartments to restaurants, cars to banks—that poses the greatest threat to our collective mental and physical well-being. It is time for an advocacy and political movement dedicated to curbing the metastasizing spread of digital technology that increasingly infects all parts of life. It is not only the children who are at stake in the digital world we live in.  

Digital Technology, Addiction, and the Tyranny of the Ever-Present

Perhaps one way to think about the pervasiveness of digital technology is to apply the language of addiction—which is no hyperbole—to the current state of affairs. Though I never struggled with alcohol abuse, I used to frequent Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and learned a great deal from them. One aspect of recovery that has always moved me is the intentionality required of participants in living out their daily lives. Recovering alcoholics are always very cognizant of the situations they put themselves in and the people they spend time with so as to minimize the chance of their being tempted to drink. For many, this means that certain venues or even friends become a thing of the past. Willpower can only achieve so much, so making environmental changes becomes a necessary step in the recovery process. The good news, however, is that the vast majority of daily living does not prompt an encounter with alcohol. Going to the bank, the pharmacy, and most work environments are all relatively low-risk activities when it comes to potential alcohol triggers. 

But not so with the smartphone. 

I am ashamed but not embarrassed to admit that I am terribly addicted to my phone and digital technology. Of course, that was the intention of the phone’s creators; there was only so much willpower I could have put into resisting its allure. But what has made my attempt to resist its pervasiveness so difficult has been that we now rely on digital technology to accomplish tasks that do not require the use of technology. And once so much of everyday life requires constant access to the phone, the temptation to use it simply becomes too great, too often. Just imagine: how successful would quitting smoking become if you needed to light up throughout the day for tasks that do not, fundamentally, require tobacco?

Here are a few instances of my forced encounter with digital technology. With the exception of the symphony (may we pray that this bastion of analogue experience holds strong), every concert I attended this year required me to take my phone to the venue to scan a digital ticket. Music requires one’s presence and attention, both of which are greatly diminished when your phone, even on silent, is in your pocket. Every time I went to a doctor’s office, I presented a digital insurance card on my phone, since my insurance company doesn’t send physical cards anymore. The same is true with my local grocery store, where my membership card and other coupons are scanned on my phone. Banks and other financial services require two-factor authentication, which is most commonly done via a smartphone app. Because so much of our daily living requires a smartphone, my friends and I who wish to break free from digital technology have been unable to successfully transition to using a dumbphone, even the “smart dumbphones” that are on the market. Not too long ago, one could navigate all of these experiences through completely analogue means. And seemingly without our consent, Big Tech took from us the ability to navigate the world untethered from our devices.

Another particularly unsettling reality is how digital technology blurs the lines between business and pleasure. We often use the very same devices for both work and leisure. This is true even down to specific apps, like WhatsApp or Signal, which are used for both business and pleasure purposes. Especially for those of us who work primarily from home, the lines between work and play are thin: we use our devices both for work emails and for keeping in touch with friends, for writing memos and for writing poetry. They’re used, in my line of work, to keep track of national security news and do open-source intelligence gathering on X, but also for mindless, soul-draining doomscrolling on that same platform. 

A Path Forward?

It is time to demand a course correction. The increasing digitization of everyday life has gone far afield of what we ever could have imagined. Amara’s Law, the notion that we “tend to overestimate the effect of technology in the short run and underestimate its effect in the long run,” has proved true. For most of human history, everyday tasks were accomplished quite seamlessly without reliance on screens or apps. I am not advocating a Burkean return to the past but for a restoration of choice: a campaign to ensure analogue alternatives to digital tools. Such a movement would advocate policies and practices that respect the autonomy and preferences of individuals who wish to navigate the world untethered from technology. And given just how ubiquitous and dangerous smartphone addiction is, perhaps there is a moral imperative to demand these changes.

Before proceeding to what some changes might look like, it is important to preempt a potential criticism. When I started writing about my smartphone addiction, I was surprised to see so many people tell me that I simply lacked the willpower to change my ways. All I had to do, they said, was just avoid looking at my smartphone. Just turn off my router or put my phone in another room. But, taking the language of addiction, would we ever tell a recovering alcoholic to simply move the beer to the downstairs fridge? Would we ever demand of the smoker that he simply, well, not smoke? We might say such inane things, but we would be accomplishing nothing meaningful. We are addicted. We need radical changes to break free. Once again, willpower can only accomplish so much.

Businesses that work on a membership model, for instance, should be required to provide physical membership cards to customers who prefer them. The current system, which insists on digital access, disproportionately inconveniences those who cannot or do not wish to rely on smartphones. Must I be forced to bring my smartphone to the gym just to scan in? Can I not get away from my phone even there? Similarly, parking garages, airports, restaurants, and other venues should offer the ability to use their services without using a mobile app. Not everyone is comfortable linking their payment methods to an app or navigating the labyrinth of permissions these platforms demand.

This demand for analogue options could extend to workplaces as well. Employers must be encouraged to provide means of completing tasks without requiring employees to tether themselves to screens at every turn. Workers should have the option to use desktop tools, paper-based processes, or even in-person meetings when feasible. Similarly, leisure spaces should consider reintroducing non-digital interactions. Libraries, for instance, should once again become places where you can read and write free from screens, not glorified computer labs with a dwindling supply of books. These changes wouldn’t just reclaim analogue options but would also reintroduce opportunities for genuine presence and engagement.

The stakes extend beyond convenience. At its heart, the need to decouple digital technology from everyday living is a battle for freedom. When mundane tasks are tied exclusively to digital systems, individuals are effectively coerced into constant connectivity. The lack of alternatives imposes a form of digital dependence that erodes our ability to function outside the narrow confines of technology. Worse still, it accelerates the homogenization of human experiences, flattening the richness and texture of daily life into a series of interactions mediated by screens.

Advocating for analogue alternatives would not mean the wholesale rejection of technology but its tempering. It would mean cultivating a society where you could still enjoy the benefits of innovation without surrendering your ability to disengage. This campaign would require participation from individuals, businesses, and policymakers alike. It might start small but its broader goal would be to establish a cultural expectation that analogue, non-connected means have sustained mankind for millennia.

Some may balk at these suggestions, dismissing them as nostalgia-driven or anti-progress. But it is not nostalgia to assert that there is value in agency, choice, and simplicity. Recovering alcoholics are not moved to quit by a sense of nostalgia for what life was like before drinking; they are motivated by the destructiveness of their addiction now. So it is here. It is not anti-progress to demand that technology serve us rather than the other way around. 

For decades, we have been told that the future is digital and that resistance is futile. But what if the future we truly want is one where the analogue coexists alongside the digital, where digital technology is an option and not a mandate? This vision is within reach, but only if we demand it. Like all meaningful change, it will require effort—letters to representatives, conversations with local businesses, and grassroots movements that challenge the status quo. The question we must ask ourselves is whether we are willing to do the work to reclaim our autonomy or whether we will continue to outsource it to the devices in our pockets. The answer will shape the way we live.

Image by Mirko Vitali and licensed via Adobe Stock.

This post was originally published on here