A photo was circulating online. It was a screenshot of a short-form video, showing multiple single-function devices, such as a Discman, a digital camera, a dumb phone, and a PSP. Overlaid it was a caption that said, “Our pockets were heavy, but our hearts were happy.” My initial reaction was: We have a choice. We just need to use it.

One of the many things I learned after relearning to accept my weird and true self is that conformity is an illusion. It’s not a universal experience. The need to conform is performative. It is where you put on a facade over your true self. This wasn’t the requirement to be accepted, to find your crowd. The prerequisite is simply boldly following your whimsy. If you find that owning multiple devices works for you, there’s no one telling you to do otherwise.

Outside of the need of using a smart phone for work (instant access to email, work chats, and docs while on the go), you can always choose to use whatever tools you need to feel okay, to be okay. I’ve seen people build their own cyberdecks, or small devices that have computer like functions but remained small as a phone. There was a community for indie or personal web, of people who customize their own websites and updates them like an online journal without the need for social media. And these people nerd out to others, their communities, on their specific niche. People are ripping their CDs or buying music online for their music players to support their favorite musicians directly instead of streaming them. There were some who were going back to retro gaming for the nostalgia, the desire to disconnect, or maybe just play a simple game without the unnecessary DLCs, patches, and in-game purchases.

Posts like these are counterproductive. When we were supposed to be doing the things we like to do – writing, coding, painting, listening to music, playing games– we post instead, or worse, scroll. The performance and the need to post in hopes of psychological or financial validation birthed the word content creator. An all-in-one. And instead of doing what we wanted to do, we post it with our sentiments about it.

Action, movement, is going through life. Posting about it freezes time, or wastes it, and reflects it back with an abhorrent screen time. But maybe I’m overthinking it, and this was just a clear-cut engagement bait.

Let us all remember that we have a choice. We just have to use it.

Choices and actions.

8/25/2025