screen use should be reduced to less than
4 hours a day TOTAL.
this becomes doubly terrifying when paired with the fact that, after COVID, this is basically impossible now
tons of places in even
mildly urban areas require smartphones for basic function. 90% of ads for events or fliers direct you to a QR code for a linktree, instagram, facebook, whatever. At absolute best you'll get an internet handle or a website. I haven't seen a phone number on anything other than customer support inquiries on the back of food packaging or really outdated ad-ridden vans for
years.
Additionally, especially in Europe, you cannot pay for a large amount of businesses without having some kind of paying app on your phone. Physical cash in Europe is just becoming less and less of a thing, and credit cards (as opposed to debit) already weren't much of one to begin with. Can't pay for things, can't tip.
In addition, though the US has managed to avoid this insanity so far, it has not managed to dodge shit like needing phones to keep track of OR SUBMIT college work (through online portals), needing a phone or internet connection to pay your bills, needing a phone to check into a hotel, needing a phone to experience fucking theme park rides in some cases--
You get my point. It is near-impossible to live without a smartphone in the modern age. I didn't have one until last year and every time I brought it up I was looked at as if I was a fucking lunatic. I often had to go out of my way to ask for alternatives (and hope that the guy handing out the QR code was either aware enough of his job to know what those were or polite enough to not give me a weird look and interrogate me on why I can't just use the QR code), most of which still involved screen time ("oh go on this website" 90% of the time), if they existed at all.
Almost every in-person event has also evaporated into group chats, or social media, or fliers that link to social media-- you get it.
People don't understand just how damaging all of this shit is, and even when they do they are completely unable to do anything to change it. I seriously doubt there will be a functional generation after Z, let alone Alpha. I haven't even scratched the surface of how terrible all of this is and just this post alone should probably impress upon you that we opened Pandora's fucking box and had absolutely zero idea of what to do if it went wrong.
The only real solace I can find in this is that this is so horribly unsustainable that my great-grandchildren might get to experience the world anew. I seriously think that the moment Gen X croaks, all of modern society will collapse or become so irreparably worse for wear that it will be unrecognizable. Those who remain will be left to rebuild the world without the internet keeping them distracted forever and ever, and that's as comfy a thought as one can get in circumstances this dire.
that, and those dementia predictions are still just predictions. Remember when the earth was going to completely freeze over by 2015? I'm not dismissing that document on those terms, I'm just coping extremely fucking hard about it by trying to bring up past examples of similarly doom-saying predictions that turned out false. Haha help.
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