Obsessions

I’ve been using the my work as a tech writer as an excuse to dive into some unproductive obsessions. And when I say “obsessions,” I mean it in a pretty serious, almost clinical way.

It’s not just my work’s fault, I think. My “information diet” — reading blogs who obsess over details like which app to use for this or that, watching YouTube channels that scrutinize phone models in such detail that a normal person wouldn’t notice the difference from the last five iterations etc. — pretty much created an alternative reality that initially seemed appealing but eventually turned suffocating.

I spend an unhealthy amount of time thinking about where to host my files and emails, looking into FOSS alternatives to apps that I already have and that work perfectly fine for me, keeping up with and testing new apps that promise to be better than the ones I currently use and enjoy.

The biggest and most recent manifestation of this obsession was trading my trusted iPhone SE for an Android phone.

Switching phones isn’t just… switching phones. Even though I’m getting along fine with Android, the switch has led to even more time spent on crazy excursions in search of things that, strictly speaking, I don’t really need. It’s fun, but it’s a bottomless time sink (which I think is a waste).

In a way, indulging in this feels like eating fast food: enjoyable in the moment, yet leaving you with indigestion later and proving dangerous in the long run.

To make matters worse, the Android phone I bought is huge and heavy. Having it in my pocket is annoying, my hands ache when I try to type even a slightly lengthy message, and there’s no comfortable way to hold it for reading.

I guess I needed to make that impulse decision to try and curb the obsession. It’s kind of like a drunk taking one last swig before committing to sobriety, you know? I think it worked, because I’m having a major hangover after having a blast setting Android up exactly the way I wanted. Even so, I’m going to abort the migration — not so much because of Android, which I actually found pretty cool, but more because I miss the human hands-compatible size of the iPhone.

All of this sounds pathetic, almost comical — or tragicomic, really; it affects both me and my work. If my goal in writing about tech is to achieve a healthy relationship with technology as much as possible, I need to take a step back and rethink some things.