Becoming a Laptop Kid Again
The first large purchase I ever made as a teenager was a white Macbook Pro. I had started to get into web programming and design and I convinced myself that I needed to be on Mac as fast as possible. I saved all of my summer landscaping and yard work job and birthday money. Once I had that white plastic clam in my hands, we were inseparable. I coded all my websites, wrote my first blogs and social media posts, edited my first videos, and so much more.In the modern world, many of us use our smart phones as our daily driver/main computer. Sure we have laptops, tablets, or if you're a power user, a desktop; but we don't use them for much outside of what we absolutely have to.Â
This week I watched Hazelisonline's recent video on getting off the algorithm grind and distancing from problematic social media.
One major point that I strongly agreed with her on was that using your phone less and for less is the best and most sustainable solution. For better or worse, form factor matters. Not to mention the amount of social engineering that's gone into making your phone as addictive as possible. I've experimented in the past with dumb phones and the like and I've mostly come to the conclusion that (at least for me) it's almost impossible to go full dumb phone in the modern world. That's why I love the idea of using our smart phones for only what we NEED them for and nothing else. There's just something about the form factor of a laptop or desktop, as Hazel puts it, "if the phone is a brain rot machine, the computer is just a tool."Â So moving forward I'm going to start working my way towards this mode of digital minimalism that is computer forward. I think the times in the last couple years that my digital and mental well being has been at its best have been when I'm a laptop kid. So let's make it a thing.Â