Jeremy C Kester

An Essay

Pixels illuminate and change color in regular, rhythmic patterns, displaying images toying with my emotions. Were I to question myself, the claim of dominance from a small machine operated by impulses of electrons cycling 1s and 0s would make me laugh. Of course, I was the dominant one, part of the collective species responsible for creating these devices. Yet, the foolishness of such beliefs tickle the edges of my mind, whispering the admission of lies meant to hide me from myself. I am truly a slave to the whims of this tiny thing.

I put my phone down. Literally and metaphorically. The darkened screen stares at me, the operations continuing in the background as though I swiped away with the primordial impulses this machine appeared to hack into, proof still, though unseen, that one can never truly escape. Yes, I still use it — how can we get away without using it in this modern society when so much is connected to it. Yet, its existence is draining. Burdensome. Stressful. Honestly, I’d like to go back to simply using a damned house line, something tethering me closer to this thing I believe is reality.

Five or six days have now passed with as little usage as I can manage. Mostly, I do this by keeping the phone out of reach, somewhere it doesn’t tempt me through proximity, close enough I sense it and am drawn to it. Having a different phone for work makes it a little more complicated, but given that particular device is strictly for work, I am not nearly as tempted. But my personal phone… it has games, social media, and all things addicting. Or, better yet, time-wasting.

People use a lot of different methods in their attempts to disconnect from their devices. Some delete all the apps. Some hide apps to make the effort to click to them more difficult. Others might use products designed to lock them out of their devices for a certain period of time. To each their own; I personally do not like those ideas, they put the agency into a tool, requiring the tool to work more than my own willpower. I am certain others will disagree with my methods, too. No single path need be the only answer.

It seems many of us agree that our devices and social media are all bad things, yet we persist in using it, telling ourselves often, at the best-case scenario, how it is simply too unavoidable, so why bother?

What I am finding is how slowly, ever so slowly, there is a fog lifting from my mind. The real world — the thing so many of us end up strangely disconnected from — is coming in more clearly. A desire to write is returning. My confidence is returning. (Or dare I say more of the “fuck you” attitude I used to have to the ideas of judgments surrounding my writing.) It feels like waking up from a deep sleep, where the world passed by for lengths of time I was simply there but not conscious for.

This was for protest, a feeble thrashing of my attention, my very willpower, to regain the agency I believed I had — the strange idea we are in possession of our own destiny I held so tightly as a pixelated window captured my soul, absorbing it with every tactile interaction. My goals in doing this are effectively two-fold: be more present in life and free me up to write more.

Granted, it the phone and devices and all those things weren’t really stopping me before; they were giving me an avenue for me to avoid these things — not because I didn’t want to do them, but more because they take some effort and discomfort. One has to work to write; one has to work to live, to interact with other humans in the real world. Digital sirens beckoned, offering me the ease of casting my soul upon them instead. Like water, always flowing toward the direction resisting it least, we find ways to ease our own momentary discomforts, even when they run opposite the path we prefer to follow.

I don’t expect perfection. Already a few times I mindlessly opened the phone and started swiping, only to realize it and throw the phone to the side, or I go to the app I had intended to use in the first place. While I might curse myself in these moments, the very idea I can question and react so quickly is a testament to the efforts I make now. This tether is loosening its hold on me.

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Photo and words copyright © 2025 by Jeremy C Kester – all rights reserved.

Note: this is also cross-posted to Poetically Unlicensed on Substack