3 Things Your iPhone Is Stealing From You
How having a digital presence is killing our autonomy, identity, and relationships
I still remember what it was like begging my mom to get me a phone. I had been a sweet little seventh grader, wandering through life and middle school with an iPod Touch that could only text when I was on WiFi.
I knew that having a phone would change my life.
“iPhone is a revolutionary and magical product that is literally five years ahead of any other mobile phone.” — Steve Jobs
I also still remember the first time I realized I had a problem with my phone and having the ability to constantly be online. There were many nights where I’d sneak it into my bedroom, doing God knows what with it until I couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore.
By the time I made it to high school and discovered some intro to self-help literature, I started attempting to set more serious boundaries with my phone.
I tried everything from apps that would block certain things, to deleting apps altogether or trying not to open my phone before a certain time.
While well-intentioned, these boundaries never really stuck. I found myself addicted, time and time again, to the phone always seemingly in my hand.
After some trial and error, I’ve come up with a more robust system of being present and not letting my phone control my life — but in the process I’ve learned how much it’s truly taken from me.
Here are 3 things your smart phone might be stealing from you: (because I know mine took them from me)
#1: Your priorities
At the New Years party I briefly attended last night, the father of one of my brother’s friends was discussing the holiday that is February 29. He was discussing how some people in his community use it as a day to do “all the things they never have time to do”.
It’s a sweet concept, with a hidden deeper reality underneath it.
“All the things they never have time to do.”
Don’t they technically have the ability to do those things everyday? It’s a sad reality that we have to set up a holiday (funny as it is) in order to make time for those things.
More and more, we’re putting off what we really want to do to check emails, respond to texts, or keep up with the latest “news” from whatever application we choose to receive that information from.
We’re barraged with text messages, notifications, and reminders we don’t even remember setting. Every app is a window to a multi-level marketing scheme dead set on maintaining our attention for as much as possible.
On an individual level, this is understandable, capitalistic, and only a tad bit manipulative at best for most of the apps we use. However, in a singular smart phone, all of these small distractions and miniature manipulations multiply to take over our lives in a never ending stream of “look at me!’s”.
One day we wake up and realize we never even got a true February 29 — and never truly lived to do the things we most wanted to do.
Why?
Because we were too busy staring at the rectangular computer at our fingertips. We have ultimately lost our autonomy to a computer that does not have our best interests, dreams, and goals at heart.
It’s easy for me to convince myself that it’s okay to have a phone. After all, it’s designed for me, right? I wish. I have to remember, at the end of the day, that my phone wasn’t designed for me.
In order to live my life in accordance with my priorities and dreams, I must be very careful to design that phone to best serve my purposes. If it can’t do that, I then have to resign myself to finding a better option.
#2: Your identity
I made an impulse decision at about 11pm on New Years Eve. The “no smart phone for a week” goal I set for myself to achieve at some point during the year was starting January 1.
No time like the present, right?
I was babysitting some kids, and we were all huddled up on the couch watching a movie so I found this as good a time as ever. I opened my phone and started doing everything I could think of to make it less attractive.
I made the screen black and white, I turned off all notifications except for texts and calls, and deleted every app that I don’t absolutely need, keeping only those which are necessary and educational, like Podcasts and Audible. I let myself keep Spotify, although that mind change during the week.
As I was doing this and editing the settings on my watch as well, I found myself having a miniature identity crisis.
There was something about disconnecting so much of my life from the box in front of me that made me realize that my identity, my self, was never inside of it to begin with.
The act of unplugging in a very realistic way made me realize that I was never my phone — and my phone was never me.
I think there’s something fascinatingly psychological about how close we keep our phones to us.
They’re always up in our faces, in our hands, or in our pockets. They’re like an adult’s version of a security blanket. We have the world at our fingertips, and oddly enough that brings us comfort, and pride.
But it was never us.
We are ourselves, and were ourselves far before we had an online presence or a device of our own. And even if we never saw that blasted computer box again, we would exist nonetheless.
I think this is something that we’ve forgotten in today’s society, leaning far more on avatars than the actual emotions of the people around us.
To build better boundaries with our phones, we have to divorce our identity from them and what they contain and are capable of doing.
#3: Your relationships with people
I don’t think it takes a scientist to point out that relationships have suffered in the digital age. Cyberbullying has been a chief concern, and while that isn’t as bothersome for adults with an online presence, there’s still similar issues that arise.
Adults all around the world are dealing with technology addiction, device-related mental health issues, pornography problems, and the general overwhelm of the online world.
We are more connected than ever, yet still disconnected from one another in so many increasing ways.
One of the main issues with being online is that we are connected superficially with people we don’t know very well.
This feeds the comparison game, assumptions about people we barely know, and a strange culture of gossip and sharing about things that never really mattered in the first place.
If you just look around, you’ll begin to see how phones have invaded our personal lives, and we never even stopped to question if they were a good idea.
We sit around on couches in living rooms that used to be reserved for game nights, laughter, singing, and togetherness. What we do now is a sad and sorry replacement for the beautiful community that technology-less lives used to seamlessly provide.
Now, we sit in order to congregate, when in reality our minds are somewhere else as we all look down, half paying attention to the conversation, but mostly looking at whatever’s on the screen in front of us.
Similarly, there are children who don’t know how to stop and have a conversation, and parents who don’t know their kids because they’re always in their devices themselves.
We’ve gotten ourselves into a tough spot. I think the only solution to getting out will be found in putting our phones away.
I’ve been rereading Cal Newport’s book, Deep Work, over the past couple of days and it’s really been a huge contributing factor in my thoughts on this subject.
While I know the digital age isn’t going away anytime soon, and I in no way think we should toss aside the incredible technology we have in 2024, I don’t think we should ignore the oftentimes harmful society we’ve created either.
Humans are always being shaped by something. It’s why scripture uses the beautiful analogy of friendship being “iron sharpening iron”. While your smart phone is in no way a friend, I think the analogy can cross over.
Does your iPhone, or any other smart phone you might own, make you better? If not, how can you change it to do so?
We are humankind.
We have written beautiful masterpieces, created magnificent works of art, put men on the moon, learned how to fly, believed in one another, made radical leaps in democracy and human rights.
Yet, we surrender our lives, will, and attention to technology, sacrificing so many beautiful moments happening right in front of us.
It’s a shame. And I think it’s time we steal ourselves back.
