How To Escape The Everything Machine
It's called a phone, but it's not...
I want to be honest with you. Your phone is not a phone. It is an Everything Machine.
Don’t believe me? Try this.
Want to phone someone? Use the Everything Machine.
Want to message someone? Use the Everything Machine.
Want to email someone? Use the Everything Machine.
Want to listen to a podcast? Use the Everything Machine.
Want to hear some music? Use the Everything Machine.
Want to see a photograph? Use the Everything Machine.
Want to take a photograph? Use the Everything Machine.
Want to watch a video? Use the Everything Machine.
Want to record a video of yourself? Use the Everything Machine.
Want to read the newspaper? Use the Everything Machine.
Want to navigate around town? Use the Everything Machine.
Want to find a spouse? Use the Everything Machine.
Want to read a book? Power up that Kindle app and, yes you guessed it, use the Everything Machine.
And I’ve not even mentioned social media yet. Facebook. Twitter (or whatever they call it now), Bluesky, Instagram, TikTok.
It’s an understatement to call this device a phone. It’s like seeing a zoo and calling it a penguin. Sure, there are penguins. But that’s not the half of it.
Before The Everything Machine
Back in the day, things wouldn’t be bundled together into an Everything Machine. In a more analogue world, different machines had different jobs. And some of those jobs didn’t even need machines.
If I wanted music, I used a record player. To watch a video, I had a TV and a video player. A radio show? The radio! To take a photograph I’d use a camera.
And guess how we read a newspaper? Or a book?? We’d sit down with an actual newspaper and an actual book!
If I wanted to connect with friends, I’d meet them. In person. Wild, right?
The Distraction Machine
There is some convenience with having everything on The Everything Machine, of course. For instance, now I can listen to podcasts and music on the go. I take one device and all my podcasts and tunes come with me.
But there are problems with it too. And here’s the biggest one.
The Everything Machine is joined at the hip to The Distraction Machine. Because the Everything Machine also includes all the things that are literally designed to interrupt you.
The Distraction Machine is the part of your phone that constantly taps at your shoulder telling you there might be something new happening. A notification buzzes for your attention. And you want to know what that is.
Even when you don’t check it, you’re thinking about it, so you are distracted anyway.
Its job is to interrupt you. It is designed to.
Deciding Not To Check Is Still An Interruption
I sought to overcome this by turning off notifications. Did it work? Not a bit. I was still wondering if something new had happened that I was no longer getting buzzed about. I’d fight myself to resist the temptation. Or I’d give in and check my phone. Sometimes I’d check my phone more often than when I had notifications turned on!
But whether I checked or whether I resisted, I was being interrupted either way. Research that shows that even having our phone in front of us makes us less present and more distracted. After all, what might be happening inside that phone that we are missing? We want to know!
I listen to a lot of podcasts on my Everything Machine. So this was my reason for carrying my phone around with me even when I didn’t otherwise need to be carrying it around.
I only needed the podcast player bit. But that lived on my Everything Machine, so I had to bring The Distraction Machine too. And that means it taps me on the shoulder every microsecond saying “Alun, has something new happened? Alun, has something new happened? Why don’t you go and check?”
So I couldn’t just be present and enjoy the podcast, because I was also struggling with this constant distraction. It is like trying to immerse yourself in a movie with someone next to you incessantly showing you things. “Alun, look at this! Alun, look at that! Hey, do you think someone might have messaged you?”
To have the convenience of The Everything Machine, I had to have The Distraction Machine too. They were all bundled together as part of the same package.
Radical Unbundling
So I’ve done something radical. I’ve started to unbundle things to create peace from The Distraction Machine.
My weird solution? I bought another phone - a really cheap one. It has no Sim card so there are no apps on it that can interrupt me. This phone isn’t capable of interruption. It simply has my podcast app, my Audible app, and BBC Sounds. Nothing else. It is deliberately distraction free.
Remember the days of the iPod when your audio device was separate from your phone? I’m back to that.
The Everything Machine/Distraction Machine is elsewhere entirely.
This is just for my audio.
The Next Level System
In fact, I’ve implemented what I call the Next Level System to deal with that.
The Next Level System is simple. Whatever level of my house I am, my phone ain’t. If I’m upstairs, the Everything Machine is downstairs. And if I’m downstairs, the phone is upstairs.
There are moments I feel tempted to check my new audio-only phone for messages. This is how well I am trained. But I quickly realise I can’t because it’s just a dumb device that can only download and play audio.
There is nothing new happening on this phone. No messages. No Whatsapps. No Likes. No emails.
Just peace and intentionality.
That’s right. This audio-only phone is a tool. I use it, rather than it using me.
Unbundling For A Distraction-Free Life
But why stop there if I want a distraction-free life?
I have decided to no longer do serious reading on screens.
I’ve gone back to reading books. And I’m using my Kindle again. My Kindle is a distraction-free device. It just shows me the words and I read them. It’s on e-paper too so I don’t get eyestrain. Nothing buzzes at me and there is no possibility of it. It has one purpose, to show me words.
Again, it is a tool that I use, rather than the other way around.
I even send my favourite Substack articles to my Kindle device. Instead of reading the article on the Substack app on my Everything Machine/Distraction Machine, I send it to Kindle.
How? I click Share, then send it to my Kindle app. A few minutes later it is on my Kindle device. Peaceful distraction-free reading with no phone in sight.
Are You The Tool?
How do you know if the device is the tool or whether you are? The key question is whether you use it, or it uses you. And that boils down to your level of intentionality.
In my experience with The Everything Machine/Distraction Machine, it has trained me like a lab rat to press the screen. Sometimes I sit there searching for an app icon to justify my need to touch the screen.
Often, I check my email or Facebook not because I picked up the phone intending to perform that task. I instead hover my finger over the screen like a helicopter seeking a place to land. I am seeking an app to justify the compulsion to press something. The rat needs to press the lever.
I am the tool. It uses me.
Social Media Is A Narcotics Business Model
Social media is a great example of this. I recall when it first came out. They called it a social network. They don’t call it this anymore, talking instead of social media. But they still borrow the words of genuine connection. Community. Friend.
Recently a Facebook friend bemoaned how she doesn’t see her friends’ posts on her feed anymore. Instead, she sees posts from Pages that she doesn’t even follow. What is going on? she wondered.
Here is what is going on. The social media companies are not interested in me being connected. They are interested in me being stuck on their platforms because that’s how they make money. If connection keeps me on, great. If not, they’ll send me reels from strangers instead, knowing that I’ll passively gawp at them for forty minutes. They know I’ll get drawn in and stay glued. How? They have the data.
It’s me versus the machines and minions of a billionaire whose sole aim is to keep me glued to his platform like a housefly to flypaper.
The business model of these apps, it seems to me, is that of narcotics. Is the aim to enrich our lives? Or is it simply to keep us using?
Leaving Social Media, Finding REAL Friends
I decided to stop using Facebook, the only social media I actively engaged with. I still have an account because who knows if I might need it now and then. (And if I do, at least then it will be my tool rather than me being Facebook’s).
But I’m no longer a Facebook user. I have deleted it from my phone. I have made it clear to my Facebook friends that I am no longer there. See my current profile pic on Facebook below.
I have reached out to people and invited others to reach out to me. I’m offering something that seems quite odd in this day and age: one to one connection. Like “here’s my number, what’s yours? How about we meet for a catch-up?”
These apps claim that they offer connection and that is true up to a point. But if they really did what they claim, how are we facing a loneliness epidemic? Maybe the connection they offer is so shallow that it isn’t connection at all.
Maybe we would be better meeting and calling each other, rather than clicking Like on each other’s posts. What if these faux social media connections have replaced the kinds of connections we might otherwise have had without them?
Maybe we’d have swapped numbers and met up instead of merely adding them as “friends” and clicking Like on their posts.
How To Escape
My escape is ongoing rather than complete. But I notice life has changed markedly already.
When I go out for a walk, I now ask myself whether I need my Everything Machine to come with me (along with the Distraction Machine that is such a key part of it).
Before, I had to take it because I like to stroll with a podcast. Now, my podcasts are unbundled and separate from my Everything Machine, so I can leave it at home.
When I visit my parents, I notice again that I don’t need to take my Everything Machine. Indeed, why did I ever? But it was never a question I even thought to ask. Like Christopher Robin and Winnie the Pooh, we went everywhere together, unquestioningly.
“Wherever I go there’s always Pooh, there’s always Pooh and me.”
Now I can and do question. Because my brain is not constantly in the grip of the Distraction Machine and the interruptions it constantly delivers.
Life is more peaceful. Happier.
I listen to a podcast and my mind no longer flits about like a pinball. It is steady and settled and present.
I read more and I enjoy it. Sometimes I read books. At other times Substack articles. But again, distraction free.
My Everything Machine is a tool to me. I access when I want to use it. It no longer has its grip on me.
And people from social media, some of whom I’ve not seen or had a one-to-one connection with for years, are sending me their phone numbers and agreeing to meet up.
Isn’t this better? My brain belongs to me. My connections join me in the real world.
Some Steps To Take
If you want to try this too. Here’s what I did in summary. Not all of it will be right for you because we are different people. But here are my steps:
Get another phone if you don’t already have a spare. This phone must have no way for you to reach others or them to reach you. Delete any apps that offer that. This phone is just for audio. It doesn’t even need a SIM card so you won’t need to sign up with a phone provider. I download shows at home on my WiFi and play them wherever I want.
The Next Level System. Put your main phone (the Everything Machine) on a floor of your house where you aren’t. If you live in an apartment, the principle is the same. Add the same kind of friction between you and that phone. Keep it somewhere else.
Read books. Physical books and Kindles are both distraction-free free so take your pick.
Get the Kindle app on your main Everything Machine phone. To send long form articles to your Kindle device, share them to the app. Don’t read them on the app or you’ll still be on the Everything Machine with all its distractions. The app is just the delivery mechanism that lets you send the article to your Kindle device. Read it in peace there.
Delete social media apps from your phone.
Make a post that lets your social media connections know you’re no longer actively using it, and invite them to message you with how to stay in touch.
Reach out to people individually, share your phone number and ask for theirs.
Ask yourself: What else could be unbundled from The Everything Machine so I can enjoy them without distraction?
I believe that most of us want to live lives of depth and connection. Those aspects of the Everything Machine that are designed to distract and interrupt us stand opposed to that.
The tech companies seem to want us to reduce our lives to an 8 inch screen - lives to be primarily spent inside of their platforms.
Yet the world is a bigger, more interesting place with deeper, richer connections. I’ve decided that I belong and deserve to be in that real, big world.
If you want that for you too, I hope these practical steps are a helpful pointer to rejoining the world again, and letting our Everything Machines be merely our tools, not our masters.