Kenneth Glad
The issue is not only about spending fewer hours online. It is about the ordinary pauses, tasks and conversations that disappear when every gap can be filled.
Some smartphone users have begun to miss the small struggles that technology was supposed to remove.
That debate is already visible in schools. UNESCO has argued that technology in classrooms should be used only when it clearly supports learning, and reported that 60 education systems had smartphone bans in school laws or policies by the end of 2023.
OECD PISA material has also pointed to classroom distraction: Students who said they were distracted by other students’ digital devices in at least some mathematics lessons scored lower than those who said this rarely or never happened.
In the Finnish outlet Uusi Juttu, journalist Vaula Helin describes returning to the work of Marion Milner, a British psychoanalyst and writer whose 1934 book, A life of one’s own, examined attention, desire and happiness through daily self-observation.
Milner’s method involved writing, drawing and watching her own reactions over time. Helin connects that older practice to a habit she had partly lost: Writing by hand.
Handwritten notes once supported her thinking, self-understanding and creative work, she writes. A smartphone can record thoughts faster, but it also opens onto messages, feeds, news, work and entertainment.
Why convenience can become a trap
Uusi Juttu frames part of the issue through the idea of friction: Not pointless hardship, but useful resistance. Searching for a fact later, writing something slowly, waiting through a dull moment or speaking to someone directly all require more effort than tapping a screen.
One of the central voices in the piece is Kai Alhanen, a Finnish political philosopher and dialogue expert. He told the outlet that the smartphone should be understood as more than a neutral tool. He described it as technology that reaches into perception, memory, imagination, thought and feeling.
Alhanen’s own daily phone is an old Nokia model. He keeps a smartphone for limited situations, including some work and travel needs. The choice is not cost-free, though. Without a smartphone, public transport can be more expensive, and many everyday systems are harder to use.
“Freedom is worth paying for, and perhaps it should be paid for,” he said.
The trade-off is practical as much as philosophical. A less connected life may mean missing app-only discounts, using slower payment methods, printing tickets or asking other people for help with systems designed around smartphones.
In the reader discussion under the original article, some commenters made the same point from another angle. One raised digital payment infrastructure, parking apps and online shopping systems as examples of services that quietly make smartphone use feel less optional. Another described giving up a basic phone experiment after needing to board a bus.
Boredom is being reconsidered
Many people no longer wait long enough to find out what their own minds do without stimulation. That is one of the article’s clearest concerns.
Alhanen’s argument draws partly on John Dewey, the American philosopher. Experience, in that view, develops when action and consequence stay connected. A person does something, feels what follows, processes it and then continues.
A phone can interrupt that chain many times in a single day. A message arrives during lunch. A fact is checked during reading. A feed fills the first minute of waiting. Nothing looks dramatic, but attention is repeatedly moved somewhere else.
“We need states where thoughts can move without us directing them, let alone a device directing them,” Alhanen told the outlet.
Some Uusi Juttu readers pushed back against an overly negative view of technology. They noted that smart devices can help people who live alone, people with physical limitations and people who rely on digital tools for memory, writing or administration.
The question is not whether phones are good or bad. It is where they belong, and who gets to decide.
Meals, buses and offices show the shift
One concrete example is the meal table. Alhanen said that smartphones seemed to appear beside plates and glasses without any shared decision. What once looked rude has become ordinary.
The point is not etiquette for its own sake. A phone on the table changes the room. Even when no one opens it, the conversation has to compete with the possibility of interruption.
Alhanen links this to the fact that people are social mammals. Face-to-face contact involves more than words. It includes pauses, glances, posture, timing and the small signs that another person is genuinely available.
The same pattern appears in other settings. A bus stop becomes a place for checking updates rather than looking around. A lunch break becomes half conversation, half inbox. A quiet evening can turn into a rotation between news, messages and short videos.
Private discipline may not be enough. A person can decide to use a phone less, but schools, workplaces, banks, ticketing systems, restaurants and public services may keep pushing life back into the device. The pressure is social and structural, not only personal.
Small repairs start with ordinary habits
The practical ideas are deliberately plain. Keep a notebook. Leave the phone away from meals. Walk without listening to anything. Let a question wait before searching for the answer. Do a task with the hands. Meet people without placing a device between bodies.
These are not full solutions. The problem, argues Alhanen, is collective, especially because digital platforms gather data and use it to influence behavior. A few private habits cannot by themselves counter systems built to capture attention.
Still, ordinary routines can make the change visible. Someone who leaves the phone at home for a short walk may notice how quickly boredom arrives. Someone who brings a notebook to lunch instead of a device may notice whether conversation changes. Someone who waits before searching for an answer may find out what they already remember.
The central warning in the article is not that technology has ruined life. It is that convenience has been accepted too quickly as an unquestioned good.
A better question may be more specific: Which tasks should technology simplify, and which ones should remain slow enough for people to stay involved?
Sources: Uusi Juttu, UNESCO; OECD PISA, Marion Milner – A life of one’s own; Simply Psychology
