Well, I feel like shit.

Not really. Bemused, more like. This was going to be a post about how awful I'm feeling at the moment. More of a shitpost, really. Bit of a whinge. It's just a cold, to be honest, but I like to bitch abou things, as you might've noticed. But my attention got derailed, and so I'm going to bitch about something else, instead.

I'm setting up a new phone 'cause apparently my old one is... well, old, and out of space. Kinda like people - eventually you've got no more space to store things. Anyway, I finally got around to powering it on, and doing all the setting up stuff, and now I feel old. Also, quite outraged. I've always been an Android user, by the way, and yes, I know they're shit, and they practically spy on your every little move. I know.

I see they've evolved, though, in the years since I last changed my phone. Now, it's got all these little widgets, and apps. What the fuck is a Bixby, can anyone tell me that? I open it, and a voice comes on, and says if you ever wanna talk to me, I'm here, or some shit like that. No, thank you. I don't think I will. I'd rather talk to my friends. Or to strangers. People, in general. I don't want to talk to a goddamn robot inside a tiny phone. How sad would that be? Terrifying thing is, I can't uninstall it. Can't even disable it. And here I was, happy they let me uninstall Facebook.

There's another app called Digital Wellbeing, which apparently tells you how much time you spend on your respective apps. Doesn't allow you to disable them, though. Doesn't, in fact, encourage you to curb your technology addiction, at all. So what good is that?

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A lot of other AR stuff, and Galaxy stuff - can't cut those off either, even though I'm not going to use them. When did that happen? It used to be you got a small Nokia phone that could call and text. Maybe you got a couple of pre-installed games, if you were extra fancy. But that was it. Then, it became common place to be able to download the apps you wanted, and that was neat. Now, they're picking for you. Soon enough, you'll be getting a visit from the digital police - we noticed you tried to uninstall so-and-so app. Not very nice, was it?

Caught it trying to sneak in Snapchat and TikTok, and all that other crap kids are hanging out on, but apparently, you're still allowed to say no to those. For now. It seems the more we talk about how dangerous technology is, the deeper in it pulls us. I'm starting to think the only solution is, contrary to what I was saying only a few weeks ago, is total cut-off. Weaning yourself off it. Because now, we're used to being constantly plugged in, from the moment we wake up, to the one where our head hits the pillow. We're plugged in to our friends' lives. Intimately, and instantly. And we always buy into this illusion that there's something urgent, some message to reply to, some meaningless meme.

With brains like that, no wonder these companies think they can tell us what's best. They can.

One thing I won't miss about the old phone, however, is its blinking thing. It starts blinking this tiny light whenever there's a message, and it's got different colors for different apps. Very demanding, it is. Very attention-grabbing. God forbid you should leave your phone on the table for a couple hours, unattended. World might explode.

I'd continue this, maybe, but there it goes again. Blinking.

It's blue.