No setting in our phones will free us from malicious product design. We need to be strong.

At the point of exhaustion. Technology has been developed to the point that we ourselves are being underdeveloped. I’ve taken personal measures to control this stagnation, yet there are still days when I awake in a digital haze. It may be prudent to throw my phone out the window, but would it still be prudent yet to throw my job, friends, and relationship along with it? YouTube shorts, a shortening of my time on this Earth. Can I put the brakes on it? No setting in my phone will win my mind back for me. There only seem to remain the most drastic of measures. At this crossroads, I feel my mind crossing over to a state of no return, a state of ritual somnolence and chronic depletion. Dulled, fatigued, there is a cloud that won’t yet leave. And ahead there is darkness. These torrenting winds of our times have confounded, enraptured, and ultimately entrapped me in this bind. In this optimized epoch, this digitalized demise, only he or she who wills to survive, who dares to breathe, will find a way to escape. Our ancestors tamed an unbridled force of the flame and used it to forge the world of today. What is most astounding is that we humans of this modern era struggle to get a grip on 6 ounces of aluminum. A few ounces of aluminum that were invented, reinvented, innovated, and optimized to establish a firm grip on the communications market. And there is no setting within that will modify this reality. No filter or color scheme that will brighten our today. No app that will resolve our crisis. No notification that will expunge our doubt. No friend request that will better our behavior. The tragedy of Narcissus was never the beauty, but rather the mirror itself, the cumbersome mirror that we still hold so dear to us. Yet now, the mirror tracks data and corresponds to certain metrics. The mirror itself fuels the the dependency, rather than merely the ego of the onlooker. That is the tragedy of this modern betrayal. There is no parable that can counter the potency of addictive product design, and no government that will take the step to forbid it. Only he or she who dares, only he or she who wills, will find a way out of this predicament of constant digital duress.

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