Struggling to Break Free of the Technopoly

"We don’t need to change everything all at once. If we make that the standard for successful action, we’ll never make any difficult choices."

From Front Porch Republic

By Edward Mason

We don’t need to change everything all at once. If we make that the standard for successful action, we’ll never make any difficult choices.

About a year ago I got a dumb phone. I was at the start of my second year at university, and I decided it was possible. My smartphone had been frustrating me for years (ever since I got one as a teen), and I wanted to go back to a simpler phone. Admittedly, I was an outlier, as my parents didn’t allow me to “upgrade” my dumb phone to a smart one until I was 15. So I had had years of “FOMO,” which I later realized was really years of being protected. Similarly, I didn’t get social media until that age too, and within a couple of months I had already deleted it as I found it so quickly changed my mood. So really, I am a classic example of someone who was always a bit cautious when it came to these things. Eventually I bit the bullet and went back to a dumb phone. It was very freeing, being able to walk around and not be constantly staring at my phone. No one was contacting me, and I loved it!

However, it did mean a lot of frustration. People were contacting me—on WhatsApp. So I had to work around that one (WhatsApp on my laptop). But, it turns out, to exist in the modern world, you need a smartphone. I ended up having to keep my old smartphone in a drawer with WhatsApp on, because it stops working after 14 days without it being used on your smartphone (as I found out the hard way). And church groups, uni societies, etc. are still very much worked through WhatsApp. In all honesty, most other apps were replaceable, although mobile banking was hard to “un-setup” (I had to revert to an old-school card reader that generated codes).

These frustrations revealed the continuing power of what Neil Postman called the “technopoly.” Our world very much cannot operate without the technology we have developed. If I deleted email, logged off of WhatsApp, and went “offline” permanently, I think a lot of things in my life would just not function. Many of my friendships would probably decline or end; it would be much harder to chat with my family (who live over two hours away) regularly; university would basically be impossible to do. Our world really is built around this stuff.

It is also interesting to note how hard it is to get other people to understand why on earth you have a dumb phone. There is a sense growing in “society” at large that something is wrong with how we interact with our precious smartphones, but we aren’t all just throwing them away. It seems we truly cannot live without them. Everyone excuses themselves with, “Oh, but I need it for. . .” or, “It’s not that bad,” or “Only the kids should not have them; I’m not affected or changed by them.” These excuses reveal the emotional denial of the power of technopoly. Even while many of us would nod our heads at what Alan Jacobs has called the “Standard Critique of Technology (SCT),” we still find it hard to imagine bucking the norms of our technological society. Indeed, it is safe to say we are too attached to our phones to accept any change that admitting our attachment would lead to. The technopoly is still a totalizing power over us. And phones make life easier. Everyone else has them, uses them, so why should I be different? The same could be said of when some of us tried to get people to switch away from WhatsApp after Facebook changed their privacy terms, “But everyone else is on it!” Yes. And that’s why I think I have to keep it on my laptop.

The power of the technopoly makes it hard for us to envisage a world without modern technology; in this case, without the smartphone. Many times, I have wondered if I should just give up having a dumb phone and accept the reality that the smartphone is needed to live in modern society today. For us members of Gen Z, this very much seems to be the case. Those of us who are “digital natives” cannot imagine life without the internet, without social media. Those of us who abstain in even small ways are seen as “weird.” And even though I tote my dumb phone around, I’m still very much online. I use my laptop daily, I need it for university work (submitting assignments, reading papers, emailing lecturers). Our lives have been built up on the internet. We grew up with it—it’s always been there. I find it interesting how little my peers read. Even the fact that I would go to the library, for a book, is seen as bizarre. No one “reads” any more. Of course we all read, just not books or anything long; we are constantly skimming instead.

And there seems to be a paralysis, a sense of futility that dogs all efforts to reshape the expectations of technopoly. How do we influence those around us to be more aware of the way tech is shaping us and of the freedom we still possess? How do we invite others to act? Our society is a technopoly. We can’t suddenly change this technopoly. Resisting in small ways seems to change nothing. How can we hope to show those around us the power technology holds over them, and even over us who affirm the Standard Critique of Technology?.

In Children of Dune, Frank Herbert makes a comment about power, which opens up a possible answer:

A large populace held in check by a small but powerful force is quite a common situation in our universe. And we know the major conditions wherein this large populace may turn upon its keepers— One: When they find a leader. This is the most volatile threat to the powerful; they must retain control of leaders. Two: When the populace recognizes its chains. Keep the populace blind and unquestioning. Three: When the populace perceives a hope of escape from bondage. They must never even believe that escape is possible!

One way to help the populace recognize its chains is to be the person who shows that it is plausible to live outside the regnant technological order. In other words, we need to help those around us “believe that escape is possible.” If, within our churches, within our schools, within our workplaces, we show that is possible to live outside the world of social media, of the smartphone, of our “now . . . this” world, others will take notice. We don’t need to change everything all at once. If we make that the standard for successful action, we’ll never make any difficult choices. But even partial refusals can encourage others to reflect on how our technology is shaping us and to make choices that prioritize the health of our communities. Such small refusals remind others that escape is indeed possible.