The iPhone has captivated the minds of a generation. It’s the perfect tool for the information age. I’m addicted, you’re addicted, we’re all addicted.

Addiction is rarely a good thing. Subtly, Apple has bit an outsized share of our individual lives. Today the brand “innovates” by finding new ways to incentivize our behavior, not by solving our problems. For all the perceived benefits, the hidden costs have been piling up.

We’re clingy towards our iPhones, she’s a lovely piece of hardware. What is the is the cost of outsourcing our lives to her?

Post breakdown

• Additive Technology

• iPhone addiction is costly

• CD1: Information

• CD2: Convenience

• CD3: Comfort

• Final Note

Additive Technology

Modern solutions to our problems are oversaturated and complex. The detachment between brand and consumer has widened as global markets mature; “Innovation” and optionality in these markets often come with veiled costs.

Take for example my experience with Big Shoe. Everybody needs a pair of good shoes. When it comes to sneakers I’m optimizing for 2 things: fashion and function. There’s about a million options for me to choose from, but I’m more likely to gravitate towards popular brands others are wearing. That leaves me with Nike, Adidas, and New Balance.

I try on all the shoes in stock and conclude that I’ve got function covered, they’re all sooo comfortable (heel padding and thick soles). These are the juggernauts of the sneaker game, after all. That leaves me with fashion, which fits my style?

I end up going with the NB 530. I look fresh as hell, but after 6 months of struttin’ I notice my lower back aches. I start hobbling around all funny and my gait is weird. I look down to see my dogs all deformed and my feet oddly contorted. I am a victim of Big Shoe.

Narrow toe boxes deform your toes over time, arch support weakens your feet, and over-cushioned soles dull sensory feedback. This was not advertised on my shoebox. My body wasn’t designed to ride foam chariots on concrete planes. Why is the newest “technology” we buy deceptively harmful?

The world is stuck on a treadmill— companies produce new versions of the same product optimizing for derivative desires while yielding adverse consequences. And we still buy it. New Balance’s products have increased their fashion and comfort at the cost of my natural bodily function. There was only the illusion of choice in my quest for a new sneaker, I’d have been better off barefoot.

iPhone addiction is costly

Let me preface by saying that the iPhone solves a lot of problems. It’s not going anywhere. I love my iPhone. I can call, text, access information from anywhere in the world. It’s amazing.

Not all features were created equally. It’s easy to forget that the iPhone has been around almost 20 years. The core value proposition hasn’t changed much but the way we use these things certainly has. What gives?

Mirroring the theme from before, we’re going to dissect three ways we use our iPhones that are worth reevaluating. Our core drives (CDs) for information, convenience, and comfort are innate human desires that can cost us if we don’t protect ourselves.

CD1: Information

What most people get wrong about their phone addictions is that they aren't actually addicted to their phones. In reality, they're addicted to information. The phone is only the primary vessel through which our addictions are served.

Like a toddler in a car seat asking, "Are we there yet?", we all want to be in the know. Our brains are wired to release dopamine as a reward for acquiring new information. The ancestral payoff of information is that we are better equipped to navigate an uncertain future. The desire for information is an evolutionary drive for survival.

The payoff of information today has been hijacked. We are fed novelty for sake of novelty. I’m guilty of this. I scroll my timeline for 30 minutes, tapping links to random blog posts ranging from tech to health to stocks; It feels like I’m learning but really I’m just flooding my mind with noise. We’re too curious about too many things and our brains aren’t equipped for unregulated online media consumption.

Apple makes things even more difficult for us. The iPhone’s display is a beautiful array of tight-knit pixels animated by a sensory spectrum of color. It sings a chorus of chimes set to a drumline of vibrations that makes us hear phantoms. And of course, it houses all of the apps.

Via Negativa is a Latin phrase “by way of negation”. It is often more effective to know and act on what NOT to do, as opposed to acting on something you know you SHOULD do. I’ve found making changes around this maxim to be effective.

I deleted all excess social media and only use Twitter and YouTube. I Brick my phone at night and don’t get fun apps until my work is done the next day. I remove distractions by staying on grayscale and DND.

Information permeates our existence, its abundance requires that we find ways to hone in on signal. The worst feeling in the world is waking up and instinctively checking your phone, nuking your RAM before the day even starts. Find ways of imposing constraints on 1) what information you consume and 2) when you get to consume.

CD2: Convenience

Convenience is a learned desire. Beyond our primal biological needs (survival, protection, freedom, …) we want to find ways of saving money, time or effort. What is the cost of convenience?

The cost is self-imposed atrophy. Our lives aren’t supposed to be effortless or ‘optimized’. The iPhone displaces certain activities that we now deem inconvenient, but those same activities often serve a greater purpose.

Big example here is with relationships. We have to put in time and effort and show up for the people in our lives. No way around it. Otherwise things stagnate, we lose touch with each other and grow apart. This reality is lost to a young generation that has increasingly forgone face-to-face social connection for screentime.

Collective action is necessary to protect the kids. I have yet to read, but The Anxious Generation was an instant bestseller with a call to action that has gained a lot of momentum, schools are starting to ban phones.

Convenience is Apple’s mo. Insatiable consumer demand for ease has spread like a virus through our material world. As a function of our learned laziness, many consumer brands have begun designing products that mimic the digital convenience we all think we want. These products feel more like bondage instead of solutions.

We’re slowly being stripped of our human ability for sake of convenience. Some things are simply fine how they are and don’t need ‘efficiency’ or ‘scale’. It’s rewarding to find these things in your life and rediscover how you can do things the old fashioned way.

CD3: Comfort

Watch the modern Zoomer in their natural habitat long enough and you can observe distinct patterns in their comfort-seeking behaviors. There are the "passing moment" scroll— quick dopamine grazes during elevator rides or coffee lines. Then there's the "thought suppression" scroll— a reflexive response to any hint of anxiety. Most fascinating is the "social buffer" scroll, where entire groups simultaneously retreat to their devices during conversational lulls, like birds taking sudden flight.

This is adaptation in real time. We are learning to outsource our emotional regulation and social navigation to pocket-sized supercomputers. The iPhone has become less of a tool and more of a symbiotic partner— it handles our discomfort, we feed it our attention.

I have friends who can’t sit through a 2 hour movie because they’re hooked on tiktok. I approach strangers and many have extreme difficulty with unstructured social interactions. These same grown iPad babies have near-instinctive aversion to mental solitude. It's as if we're selecting for traits that make us docile. This is what I like to call Cocomelonification.

The collective comfort-seeking has become self-reinforcing: the more normal it becomes, the more uncomfortable it feels to resist it. The question isn't whether this adaptation is good or bad, but what it means for our capacity to handle discomfort down the road.

Final Note

Our core drives for information, convenience, and comfort are evolutionary desires that also happen to be very profitable. It’s hard to imagine a future where the masses don’t want even more of these three things, and products/technologies continue to hijack our human impulses. Beware of the costs when you compulsively reach for your iPhone, consider your intention, and watch for the Apples falling.

My biggest motivator against (ab)using my iPhone is the feeling of lost potential. To be young but distracted. To be smart but lazy. To have desire but not agency.

I have no prescriptive solutions to offer. We all have our vices yet we can all change our minds. iPhones are great tools but addiction is ugly.

I once chose to forgo social media and read a book. To my surprise, I actually learned something. Now it’s time for me to go back to Indiana Jones mode.

I hope you got some alpha from this. Shoot me a message on X @kylerudm if you want to chat about your anything. My going to write a newsletter every week, my goal right now is to get better. All feedback is appreciated.