The iPhone was the best thing a nerd could own. It is also the worst.
Dial-up limited the amount of time spent on the internet, then DSL and cable become affordable. Suddenly it was practical to leave Napster running constantly, reasonable to leave your IM service turned on. Whims became immediately doable. The only reprieve to go outside where the sun shined unblocked by clouds of network packets.
For a time, a couple thousand years or so, the stress of social interactions was resolved by actually talking to the other people. Friendships were created, relationships endured, phone bills were small. With LTE phones we surf, post “wish you were here” photos on instagram (or more likely Flickr now), anything to avoid eye contact.
The pendulum swings back towards physical social interactions, leaving some to disown smart phones entirely. Stephen Hackett is one of the latest to announce his intentions to abandon the new way of life. His intentions are honest and I laud his efforts, you can have your cake and eat it too. The benefits of owning a smart phone outweighs the disadvantages. Stephen’s solution works for him, but by overcompensating instead of using self control, he’s making the wrong statement. Uninstalling twitter instead of throwing my phone in a drawer is far more reasonable to this geek.