It’s been 33 years since Steve Jobs talked about the personal computer becoming a bicycle for the mind. In those years, the advent of the smartphone and the mass adoption of social media have turned those bicycles into runaway trains. Americans spend more than four hours a day on their smartphones–and more than half say they are addicted to their device. In May 2023, the surgeon general issued a warning about the concerning effects of social media on youth mental health.
Most of us probably do not require such statistics to identify the phenomenon: Our own habits reveal that the state of digital well-being today is a grim one. There is a fundamental misalignment between human attention and intention when engaging with screens.
