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Unlike nearly 98 percent of Americans under the age of 50, I don’t have a smartphone. Actually, I’ve never had a smartphone. I’ve never called an Uber, never “dropped a pin,” never used Venmo or Spotify or a dating app, never been in a group chat, never been jealous of someone on Instagram (because I’ve never been on Instagram). I used to feel ashamed of this, or rather, I was made to feel ashamed. For a long time, people either didn’t believe me when I told them that I didn’t have a smartphone, or reacted with a sort of embarrassed disdain, like they’d just realized I was the source of an unpleasant odor they’d been ignoring. But over the past two years, the reaction has changed. As the costs of being always online have become more apparent, the offline, air-gapped, inaccessible person has become an object of fascination, even envy. I have to confess that I’ve become a little smug about being a Never-Phoner—a holdout who somehow went from being left behind to ahead of the curve.
与近98％的50岁以下美国人不同，我没有智能手机。实际上，我从来没有智能手机。我从来没有打过Uber，从来没有“丢下别针”，从未使用过Venmo或Spotify或约会应用程序，从未参加过小组聊天，从未在Instagram上嫉妒某人（因为我从未去过Instagram）。我曾经为此感到羞耻，或者更确切地说，让我感到羞耻。很长一段时间以来，当我告诉他们我没有智能手机时，人们都不相信我，或者以一种尴尬的蔑视做出反应，就像他们刚刚意识到我是他们无视的令人不快的气味的来源一样。但是在过去的两年中，反应发生了变化。随着始终在线的成本变得越来越明显，离线，开发，难以接近的人已成为迷人的对象，甚至羡慕不已。我必须承认，我对成为一个永无止境的人有点自鸣得意 - 这是一个以某种方式从被抛在后面到曲线前方的坚持。
How far ahead is difficult to say. I think I’ve avoided the worst effects of the smartphone: the stunned, preoccupied affect; the social atrophy; the hunched posture and long horizontal neck creases of the power scroller. I’m pretty sure my attention span is better than many others’, based on the number of people I’ve observed in movie theaters who either check their phone every few minutes (about half) or scroll throughout the entire movie (always a handful). I will, by the way, let you know if I witness you engaging in similar behavior: If you look at your phone more than once an hour, I will call you an “iPad baby”; if you put on an auto-generated Spotify playlist, I’ll call you “a hog at the slop trough.”
很难说多远。我认为我避免了智能手机的最坏影响：惊人的，全神贯注的影响；社会萎缩；弯曲的姿势和较长的水平颈部折痕。我敢肯定，根据我在电影院中观察到的人数每隔几分钟（大约一半）检查手机，或者在整部电影中滚动（总是很少），我的注意力跨度比其他许多人都要好。顺便说一下，我会告诉您，如果我目睹您从事类似的行为：如果您每小时多次看手机，我会称您为“ iPad Baby”；如果您放置了自动生成的Spotify播放列表，我会称您为“坡道上的猪”。
Being phoneless has definitely had downsides. The pockets of every jacket I own are filled with maps scrawled on napkins, receipts, and utility bills torn in half to get me to unfamiliar places. I once missed an important job interview because I’d mislabeled the streets on my hastily sketched map. At the end of group dinners, when someone says, “Everyone Venmo me $37.50,” the two 20s I offer are taken up like a severed ear. And I’d be lying if I said I didn’t occasionally get wistful about all the banter I’m probably missing out on in group chats.
没有电话肯定有缺点。我拥有的每件夹克的口袋里都充满了餐巾纸，收据和公用事业账单的地图，使我到了不熟悉的地方。我曾经错过了一场重要的面试，因为我在匆忙的素描地图上误标记了街道。在小组晚宴结束时，当有人说“每个人的venmo我$ 37.50”时，我提供的两个20年代被割断了。如果我说我偶尔不想在小组聊天中错过的所有玩笑，我会撒谎。
Still, I’ve held out, though it’s hard to articulate exactly why. The common anti-smartphone angles don’t really land with me. The cranky “Get off your darn phone!” seems a little too close to “Get off my lawn!”—a knee-jerk aversion to new things is, if not the root of all evil, then the root of all dullness. The popular exhortations to “be fully present in the moment” also seem misguided. I think the person utterly absorbed in an Instagram Reel as they shuffle into the crosswalk against the light, narrowly saved by the “Ahem, excuse me” double-tap on the horn that bus drivers use to tell you that you’re a split second from being reunited with your childhood dog, is probably living in the moment to a degree usually achieved only by Buddhist monks; the problem is just that it’s the wrong moment.
尽管如此，我仍然坚持不懈，尽管很难确切地表达原因。常见的反智能手机角度并没有真正与我在一起。胡思乱想的“脱下你的手机！”似乎有点接近“脱下我的草坪！” - 对新事物的膝盖厌恶是，即使不是万物的根源，也是所有沉闷的根源。流行的“当下完全存在”的劝告似乎也被误导了。我认为，当他们靠着光线驶入人行横道时，完全吸收了该人，这些人被“ ahem，oike me”的灯光狭窄地保存在公交车司机用来告诉您您与孩子们团聚的距离上，可能只能在一定程度上生活，通常只能由佛教佛教莫克斯（Flaster Monks）取得一定程度的成就；问题在于这是错误的时刻。
Read: Why are there so many “alternative devices” all of a sudden?
阅读：为什么突然有这么多的“替代设备”？
Mostly, I think the reason I don’t opt for the more frictionless phone life is that I can’t help noticing how much people have changed in the decade or so since smartphones have become ubiquitous. I used to marvel at the walking scroller’s ability to sightlessly navigate the crowd, possibly using some kind of batlike sonar. But then, on occasion, whether out of a vague antisocial impulse (not infrequent) or simple necessity (as in navigating a narrow aisle at the grocery store), I’d play a game of chicken with one of these people, walking directly toward them to see when they’d veer off. A surprising percentage of the time, they didn’t, and after the collision, they’d always blame me. Eventually, I realized they’re not navigating anything; they’ve just outsourced responsibility for their corporeal self to everyone else around them, much as many people have outsourced their memory to their phone.
通常，我认为我之所以不选择更无摩擦的电话寿命，是因为我不禁注意到十年左右的人发生了多少变化，因为智能手机变得无处不在。我曾经惊叹着步行滚动器的能力，可以使用某种类似蝙蝠的声纳，无视人群。但是，有时，无论是出于模糊的反社会冲动（不是很少）还是简单的必要性（就像在杂货店在狭窄的过道中一样），我都会和其中一个人一起玩鸡游戏，直接走向他们何时去看他们。他们没有达到令人惊讶的百分比，而碰撞后，他们总是怪我。最终，我意识到他们什么都没有导航。他们只是将自己的物质自我责任外包给周围的其他人，就像许多人将记忆外包给手机一样。
You’re probably saying, well, at least they’re on foot, and not driving a car. But many people look at their phones behind the wheel too. At a four-way stop, oftentimes the driver who yields to the crossing vehicle will steal a half-second look at their phone while they wait. At red lights, I see people all the time who don’t look up from their phone when the light turns green—they just depress the gas when the car in front of them moves. Less hazardous but somehow more disturbing are the people I see scrolling in parked cars late at night. When I glance over—startled by the sudden appearance of a disembodied, underlit face on an otherwise deserted block—these people typically glare back, looking aggrieved and put-upon, as if I’ve broken a contract I didn’t know I’d agreed to. I try to give them the benefit of the doubt; maybe they share a bed with a light sleeper, or have six annoying kids bouncing off the walls at home. But it happens often enough that I’ve come to think of them as the embodiment of contemporary alienation. Twenty-five years ago, we had Bowling Alone; today, we have scrolling alone.
您可能是在说，至少他们步行了，不开车。但是许多人也看着车轮后面的手机。在四路停留时，屈服于越野车的驾驶员通常会在等待时偷走他们的手机半秒。在红灯处，我一直看到当灯变绿色时，人们一直都不会从手机上抬起头来 - 当他们前面的汽车移动时，他们只是压下气体。我看到的危险较小，但更令人不安的是我在深夜看到的滚动汽车滚动的人。当我瞥了一眼时，当我在原本空无一人的街上突然出现了一个不明智的，底色的面孔的突然出现时，这些人通常会向后眩光，看上去很沮丧和受害，好像我违反了我不知道我同意的合同。我试图给他们带来怀疑的好处；也许他们与轻便的卧铺共享一张床，或者让六个烦人的孩子在家里偏离墙壁。但是，我经常将它们视为当代疏远的体现。25年前，我们独自打保龄球。今天，我们独自滚动。
Read: The smartphone kids are not all right
阅读：智能手机的孩子不好
Of course, a phone is just a medium, no different on some level from a laptop or a book, and the blanket “phone bad” position elides the fact that people could be doing a nearly infinite number of things on them, many of them productive. The guy hunched intently over his phone at the gym might be reading the latest research on novel cancer treatments. But probably not. Once, a guy at my gym, whose shoulder I looked over as he used the stationary bike in front of me, was talking to an AI-anime-schoolgirl chatbot on his phone. She was telling him, in a very small, breathy voice, how she’d been in line at the store earlier, and when someone had cut in front of her, she’d politely spoken up and asked them to go to the back of the line. “That’s great, baby,” he said. “I’m so proud of you for standing up for yourself.”
当然，手机只是一种媒介，与笔记本电脑或书籍一级没有什么不同，毯子“电话不好”的位置却散发出这样一个事实，即人们可能在上面做几乎无限的事情，其中许多人都有生产力。那个家伙在健身房专心弯腰弯腰，可能是阅读有关新型癌症治疗的最新研究。但可能不是。有一次，一个在我的健身房里的家伙，当他在我面前使用固定自行车时，我看着他的肩膀，正在用手机与Ai-Anime-Schoolgirl聊天机器人交谈。她告诉他，用一个很小的呼吸的声音告诉他，她早些时候在商店里排队时，当有人在她面前切下来时，她礼貌地说话，要求他们走到线的后面。“太好了，宝贝，”他说。“我为您自己站起来而感到骄傲。”
This is more or less typical of the stuff I spy people doing on their phone—self-abasing, a devitalized substitute for some real-life activity, and incredibly demoralizing, at least in the eyes of a phoneless naif. Many times, I’ve watched friends open a group chat, sigh, and go through a huge backlog of unread messages, mechanically dispensing heart eyes and laughing emoji—friendship as a data-entry gig you aren’t paid for, yet can’t quit. I have a girlfriend, but one of my friends often lets me watch as he uses the dating apps. Like most men (including myself), he overestimates his attractiveness while underestimating the attractiveness of the women he swipes on. “I guess I’ll give her a chance,” he’ll say, swiping right on a woman whom ancient civilizations would’ve gone to war over.
这或多或少是我间谍人们在手机上做的事情的典型特征 - 至少在一个无声的NAIF眼中，他们自言自语，是对某些现实生活活动的不权威替代品，并且令人难以置信。很多时候，我看过朋友打开一个小组聊天，叹了口气，经历了一大批未阅读的消息，机械地分配心脏的眼睛和笑表情符号，这是您没有付费的数据进入的演出，但无法辞职。我有一个女朋友，但是我的一个朋友经常让我看着他使用约会应用程序。像大多数男人（包括我自己）一样，他高估了自己的吸引力，同时低估了他扫过的女人的吸引力。他会说：“我想我会给她一个机会。”
As long as this friend does his daily quota of swipes, he’s “out there and on the market,” he tells me, and there’s “nothing more he can do.” Yet we go to the same coffee shop, and several times a week, we see a woman who seems to be his perfect match. Each day, he comes in, reads his little autofiction book, then takes out his laptop to peck away at a little autofiction manuscript. Each day, she comes in, reads her little autofiction book, then takes out her laptop to peck away at what we’ve theorized must also be a little autofiction manuscript. Sometimes they sit, by chance, at adjacent tables, so close that I’m sure he can smell her perfume. On these occasions, I try to encourage him from across the room—I raise my eyebrows suggestively, I subtly thrust my hips under the table. After she leaves, I go over and ask why he didn’t talk to her; he reacts as if I suggested a self-appendectomy. “Maybe I’ll see her on the apps,” he says, of the woman he’s just seen in real life for the 300th time.
他告诉我，只要这个朋友每天的刷卡配额，他就在市场和市场上。”然而，我们去同一家咖啡店，每周几次，我们看到一个女人似乎是他的完美搭配。每天，他进来，阅读了他的小自动题书，然后拿出笔记本电脑啄一次小手稿。每天，她进来，阅读了她的小自动书籍，然后拿出笔记本电脑啄我们的理论也必须有点自动手稿。有时，他们偶然地坐在相邻的桌子上，如此近，以至于我确定他可以闻到她的香水。在这些场合，我试图鼓励他从整个房间里鼓励他 - 我暗示着眉毛，我巧妙地将臀部推下桌子底下。她离开后，我走过去问他为什么不和她说话。他的反应好像我提出了自我施加切除术。他说：“也许我会在应用程序上看到她。”他第三次在现实生活中刚刚见过的那个女人。
Read: The slow, quiet demise of American romance
阅读：美国浪漫的缓慢而安静的灭亡
I don’t blame him. He’s 36 and has only ever dated through apps. Meeting people in public does seem exponentially harder than it was just 10 years ago. The bars seem mostly full of insular friend groups and people nervously awaiting their app dates. (Few things are more depressing than witnessing the initial meeting of app users. “Taylor … ? Hi, Riley.” The firm salesmanlike handshake, the leaning hug with feet kept at maximum distance, both speaking over each other in their job-interview voices.) I often see people come into a bar, order a single drink, sit looking at their phone for 20 to 30 minutes, and then leave. Maybe they’re being ghosted. Or maybe they’re doing exactly what they intended to do. But they frequently look disappointed; I imagine that their visit was an attempt at something—giving serendipity an opportunity to tap them on the shoulder and say, Here you go, here’s the encounter that will fix you.
我不怪他。他36岁，只有通过应用程序来约会。在公共场合见面的确比十年前的人呈指数级数。酒吧似乎大部分充满了孤立的朋友团体，人们紧张地等待着他们的应用日期。（几乎没有什么比目睹应用程序用户的初次会议更令人沮丧的。也许他们被幽灵。或者，也许他们正是在做他们打算做的事情。但是他们经常感到失望。我想他们的访问是一次尝试的尝试 - 偶然性是一个机会，可以在肩膀上敲击他们，然后说，这是可以解决您的相遇。
Witnessing all of this, I sense that a huge amount of social and libidinal energy has been withdrawn from the real world. Where has it all gone? Data centers? The comments? Many critics of smartphones say that phones have made people narcissists, but I don’t think that’s right. Narcissists need other people; the emotional charge of engagement is their lifeblood. What the oblivious walking scroller, the driving texter, the unrealistic dating-app swiper have in common is almost the opposite—a quality closer to the insularity of solipsism, the belief that you’re the one person who actually exists and that other people are fundamentally unreal. Solipsism, though, is a form of isolation, and to become accustomed to it is to make yourself a kind of recluse, capable of mimicking normalcy yet only truly comfortable shuffling among your feeds, muttering darkly to yourself.
目睹了所有这些，我感觉到已经从现实世界中撤出了大量的社会和性欲能量。一切都去了哪里？数据中心？评论？许多智能手机的批评者都说手机使人们自恋，但我认为这是不对的。自恋者需要其他人；订婚的情感指控是他们的命脉。忽略的步行滚动器，驾驶发言人，不切实际的约会应用刀刀几乎是相反的，这是一种更接近孤独主义的典型性的质量，相信您是实际上存在的人，而其他人从根本上是不真实的。不过，唯物主义是一种孤立的形式，并且习惯它是为了使自己成为一种隐居者，能够模仿正常状态，但只能真正舒适地在饲料中散发出来，对自己暗淡地喃喃自语。
I know that my refusal to get a smartphone is an implicit admission that I would become just as addicted to it as anyone else. Recently, my girlfriend handed me her phone and told me to put on music for sex; a few minutes later, she leaned over to see what was taking so long. I had been looking at the Wikipedia page for soft-serve ice cream. I have no idea why I was looking at that or even how I’d gotten there. It’s like the sudden availability of unlimited information had sent me into a fugue state, and I just started swiping and scrolling. I guess I looked into the void and fell in. I won’t lie; it felt kind of nice, giving up.
我知道我拒绝获得智能手机是一种隐含的承认，我会像其他任何人一样沉迷于它。最近，我的女友递给我她的手机，告诉我要做爱音乐。几分钟后，她俯身看看花了这么长时间。我一直在寻找Wikipedia页面上的软冰淇淋。我不知道为什么我要看那个甚至是如何到达那里的。这就像无限信息的突然可用性使我进入了赋格状态，而我才开始刷卡和滚动。我想我看着空白了。我不会撒谎。感觉很好，放弃。
