The Joy of Missing Out

In the NYT, Hayley Phelan recommends disengagement from the information rat race.

If you're wondering whether you may also be engaging in unhealthy tech habits, here's a helpful pop quiz:

Do you own a smartphone?

That's it. Because if you answered yes, you're essentially carrying around what the Center for Humane Technology, an organization working to spur reform in the tech and media industries, calls a "slot machine" in your pocket. Play it enough times, and you're bound to get hooked. This isn't an accident. This is big business.

There are further tips in the article, all of which amount to "be less online" and, euphemized, "remember that capitalism is bad."

The phrase "Joy of Missing Out" and the ideas behind it have already been appropriated by those it obviously aims to subvert. Pictured below is Google CEO Sundar Pichai, selling you the idea of using Google to cut down on everything except Google.

This means that if you talk about this stuff in its intended or meaningful sense, gentlemen will explain it to you or tell you to use some app that stops you using other apps, then turn weirdly aggressive when you disagree.