Opinion | Our smartphones aren’t sparking joy, and we need to rethink our addiction to them

One of my favourite non-fiction authors, Cal Newport, has just come out with a new book, Digital Minimalism. Although this title might at first suggest an esoteric Zen approach to programming, it is actually nothing of the sort. In simple terms, it means figuring out what you want from technology before you use it. Or, as Newport has stated: “Digital minimalism is a philosophy that helps you question what digital communication tools (and behaviours surrounding these tools) add the most value to your life.”

Consider the idea of the ever-more-powerful smartphone. This germinated in an age when laptops were big, clunky things. When I moved to Japan in 2004, I lugged along a then state-of-the-art Toshiba laptop, nicknamed “the Blue Cadillac” because of its size, weight, colour and the chrome strip running around it. It never left my desk. Now my MacBook Air is so thin and light I have to check my backpack to make sure I haven’t forgotten it. And the reality is that even the most expensive smartphone on today’s market is not as good for writing as the cheapest laptop. As the constant tweaking of tablets should make clear, you still need a keyboard to write anything of substance. Basically, smartphones are great for watching funny cat videos on YouTube but not good for getting work done.

In my own field of education, a race began in the 1990s to expose kids to technology. Every school scraped together funding for computer rooms, which were filled with boxy desktop computers and unveiled with speeches about giving lower-income kids an even chance. Today, kids are transfixed by smartphones and the idea that schools have to play their part in exposing students to technology should have become obsolete. Yet, anyone who doubts this thinking is likely to be vilified as a grey-haired martinet of a teacher, or worse, a librarian.