October 24, 2025
Is it just me, or is our addiction to modern technology just part of a carefully constructed money-making paradox?
It’s a quiet Friday evening in Chicago as I sit here alone in my apartment. I’m quite used to chilling on my own for most of the week, I see some of my friends once or twice each week. I currently don’t have a girlfriend, but I’m not terribly desperate to find one at the moment. I’ve got other life priorities going on, and this is quickly starting to become one of them.
It’s easy to feel lonely at times. I’ve had that empty feeling bother me for the past few years. I’m not terribly happy, but I’m also not happily depressed. Writing often brings me enough pleasure to be able to reflect on myself and what life has to throw against me and other people.
But this has got me to wonder: if I don’t spend my time often with people outside of work, what am I often doing when I’m by myself? What are people who spend their lives mostly by themselves doing in their own free time?
These days, it’s pretty easy to point figures at the Mark Zuckerburgs of our time for “ruining” our lives with our addiction to technology. I admit that I’m guilty as everyone else who has blamed other people for worsening the problems in our lives from behind a glass screen which glows so brightly that it melts our eye sockets.
I’ve been through much stress recently just from being on my smartphone all the time. And it doesn’t take one guy with his own blog (who blogs anymore?) to say that this unhealthy dependance on technology is bad or is counterproductive to our development as social creatures. No, that’s not what I’m trying to say. I believe that we are simply living in times when the systems of yesterday are starting to clash fiercely with the speed of tomorrow, and there’s little in the way of stopping it.
I’m talking hand to hand combat here. Father Time, himself, fighting against himself. For example, capitalism, and for all of its successes (thank you, Adam Smith), has gradually found itself conflicting with our personal lives in less than desired ways (health insurance, I’m looking at you). Who knew that many more of us would be struggling to make ends meet today while our grandparents recall about them time when a burger used to cost 5 cents? I mean, make some more sense for us, you know?
Meanwhile, the utopian promises of the future have not always been so kind to us. Technology has become so far advanced that now I can order some goddamn McDonald’s from my own phone, rewarding me if I stay within the comfort of my home and do nothing but chug some Mountain Dew and play video games while the rest of the world seemingly burns. Oh, and I can also finance my burger with Buy Now, Pay Later if I want some easy debt to never pay back. Let’s just hope those AI robots get here sooner.
And don’t get me started on the modern politics of American history. I can’t wait to tell me children about the struggles of 2020s America, wait, I can’t even afford to have kids!
But above all else, I see part of this to be a clash between two seemingly contradictory forces that often goes unnoticed: the desire for peace vs. the desire for connection. Introverted people know what I’m talking about. It’s about the feeling of not wanting to be near people because we’re too comfortable being distracted by entertainment on our devices. It’s also about: “I feel bored and lonely. Maybe I should ask my friends if they want to go out somewhere tonight. Nah, I’ll do it tomorrow.”
Am I wrong to want to keep to myself in solitude all week long just because I have fun watching YouTube all day and scrolling through countless brainrot videos? Probably not. But my body will likely get sick of it and punish me for it in the long run. All of these seemingly overwhelming forces which has converged to create our modern society as we know it, the modern world that you and I live in (at least for us, Westerners), are tearing apart, and it appears like it’s going to get very ugly real soon.
But for people, like you and I, who just want to live our lives in peace and not have to think about the stress of this loud world that is often worsened by addictive technology, I say to you: did you remember to turn off your car’s headlights today?
– Ruben