Black Mirrors 🖤🪞📱
iPhone gives you access to the Internet. It also gives the algorithms access to you.
What is the one screen on iPhone you cannot take a screenshot of? It is the power off screen. This screen captures so much of what is insidious about iOS:
Even when you turn it off, Apple knows where you are. If you are in an emergency, it will locate you. If you get addicted to it, you try to Cancel others.
At its best, iPhone empowers people. It gives sight to the blind, opportunity to the young, and information to the curious.
At its worst, iPhone enslaves people. It ruins relationships, causes suicides, and starts fights between people who should never meet.
This is the Black Mirror we all carry. It is like the Ring of Power—so powerful and so dangerous.
Unlike most people, I actually bought the first iPhone. That means I have been using iOS for 15 years. Or has it been using me?
My iPhone has given me the best and the worst times of my life. It has brought me money, fame & love. It has cost me friendships and made me many enemies. It is me. I am it. After a decade and a half of carrying this Black Mirror, this is how I feel:
I used to think the Black Mirror is just a reflection of ourselves. Now I know what it truly is: a digital sword.
Swords are noble and brutal.
They can be wielded for good or used for bad.
It can give great minds a way to connect and evil minds a way to divide.
The algorithms that invade our phones are like the magical spells that a wonderful wizard or an insipid sorcerer can cast.
We must be so careful to avoid their evil calling.
iPhone + Internet + App + Algorithm = Superpowers
Nuclear warheads sit in bunkers—inert. Algorithms flow into your children’s minds—exploiting.
To the parents who read this: How does this make you feel?
Your kids are literally addicted to a piece of glass and metal.
Are you happy about that?
Do you love it?
I doubt it.
iPhone + Instagram = Suicide, Lust & Depression
iPhone + Twitter = Cancel, Argue & Divide
iPhone + Tinder = Judge, Cheat & Split
iPhone + FTX = Trade, Borrow & Lose
iPower
iPhone is anything to anyone. That is its power and its danger. We have to be so careful and intentional about what we show to people. The pixels that render on a screen you have with you everywhere are going to affect everything you think and do.
We all need to be so careful about what we let light up our Black Mirror.
Texting Is Not Talking
Why is it so hard to pick up the phone and just talk to people? I’ll tell you: everyone has their phone on silent.
As a result, everyone has receded into a form of miscommunication know as texting. Take if from someone who has been texting for 20 years—texting is not talking. At all.
Text-based miscommunication is causing so many issues for everyone I love:
My friends are breaking up because of poorly worded texts.
My family are misunderstanding me because of letters on a screen.
My heroes upset me when they send me poorly worded advice.
We need better tools for talking to one another. If calls are not enough, what will work? I think I have a few ideas, but I am not ready to share them.
i am my iPhone. i am my Black Mirror.
We all have mental battles. Some of us figure out how to win the war with our minds. Many of us fail.
If you have a negative net worth, a trail of divorce papers, and no love in your home, whose fault is that? Is it everyone else’s? Or is it yours?
Perhaps you didn’t listen to capitalism, your partner, or your children? Perhaps you failed. Perhaps you are wrong.
What do iKnow?
iKnow u
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