walking around gives a lot of time to think, especially when one doesn't bring a smart phone with one

and as i was on my big walk this morning back to sao vicente to retrieve the last few essentials for me to be able to do my thing here (some toiletries, some frozen foods, coffee machine and pods) i had a thought

mobile phones originally were a great thing... now you can make and receive calls from anywhere

but then they turned them into a Viewscreen in your Pocket, 1984 style, and did all this shit to get people addicted to carrying them around and staring at them every spare moment they weren't busy, and even often when they were, leading to more than a few accidents

i think there will be a move back to the idea of a phone just being a way to make and send short messages and do voice calls... i sure feel a lot better knowing the little phone in my pocket can barely do anything except tell the telco where the sim is, approximately, phone is too small and dumb to be able to do any more surveillance or manipulation than this. perfect.