I Sit, Scroll, Rot and Repeat. Yes, It Was The Damn Phones | A Powerful Poem By Kori Jane Spaulding 📵🤳

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Sit and Scroll and Rot 📵🤳

For years, I’ve been writing about all that Ms. Spaulding talks about in her poem “It was the damn phones”. But, hearing this from someone like her from Gen Z stands out because she understands that “We are the product.” The weight of the regret is palpable when she says, “I know it’s poison, but I drink away. Sit and scroll and rot”.

As parents and educators, it’s time to rethink when the relationship our children have with their screens. Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist, has been asking us to reconsider the first time we will let our children own a smart phone. For us adults, who are struggling with tech addiction ourselves, its time to rethink our unique proposition as human beings. After all, we only have this one precious life to live. We’re trading genuine connection for online validation. Maybe it’s time to ladder down, unplug deliberately, and rebuild.

Finally, let me tell this to each one of you, who feel like its your lack of self discipline that has made you hooked to your devices. No, don’t blame yourself fully, these devices were engineered for addiction. So beware.

It Was the Damn Phones
By Kori Jane Spaulding

I think our parents were right.

It was the damn phones.

We laughed as children, hearing, “It’s that Snapgram and Instachat and Facetok”.

They didn’t understand. They couldn’t even say it right. We thought we knew better than them.

They didn’t know what it was like, having the world at the tip of our fingers.

We scroll through the trash so much, we have news headlines tattooed on our skin.

Wires for veins. AI for a brain. And they may not have understood. But they were right.

It was the damn phones.

I prided myself on sobriety, on being drunk with only propriety. I was above addiction.

A hypocritical notion. For am I not addicted to my own anxiety?

Brought on by a need for constant stimulation. A drug in our pockets.

But who can blame us? We were but children when they were given.

We didn’t know how to stop it. If I added up all the hours I spent on a screen,

existential dread and regret would creep in. So I ignore this fact by opening my phone.

And it’s not like I can throw it away. It’s how we communicate. It’s how we relate.

It’s a medicine that is surely making our souls die.

I used to say I was born in the wrong generation, but I was mistaken.

For I do everything I say I hate. Exchanging hobbies for Hinge,

truth with TikTok, intimacy with Instagram, sanity with Snapchat.

I have become self-aware. Almost worse than being naive. I know it’s poison, but I drink away.

The character behind the phone screen has become self-aware.

We used to be scared of robots gaining consciousness, a lie by the media companies.

To keep us distracted enough, so not to become conscious of the mess they created.

We are the robots. We are the product. And so I sit and I scroll and I rot on repeat.

Sit and scroll and rot.

Until my thoughts are what is being fed to me on TV,

until my feelings are wrapped up in celebrities,

until my body is a tool of my political identity.

I sit and I scroll and I rot.

And I post on the internet how the internet has failed us

so that I may not fail my internet presence. I think our parents were right.

It was the damn phones.

It Was the Damn Phones

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Truth About Technology – A Digital Literacy Project