Bored? No way. Ditching technology makes life complicated and beautiful

Here is the third article in the series written by autonomist and luddite author Mark Boyle for the British newspaper The Guardian between 2016 and 2019. In these texts, he shares his experience of living without modern technology and offers a glimpse of what human existence could look like once the techno-industrial order is dismantled.

You can read the other texts by Mark Boyle here:

1. Technology destroys people and places. I’m rejecting it

2. Lessons of living like a prince outside cyberia

3. Bored? No way. Ditching technology makes life complicated and beautiful

4. Environmentalism used to be about defending the wild – not any more

5. Living without technology taught me about life in society;

6. You don’t need modern medicine to be healthy;

7. Living without technology is not romantic;

8. We must resist, revolt, and rewild ourselves;

9. Disconnecting from the industrial world helped me discover what reality really is.

__________

We are walking eyes half-open, half-asleep into a techno-dystopia even George Orwell couldn’t imagine. 1984 is starting to look primitive compared to what’s in store for us. Sex robots could soon make deep, intimate relationships with other people a thing of the past, in the same way machines have made obsolete a deep intimate relationship with the natural world. Why bother with all the messy, complicated beauty of life when you can have the sterile predictability of a machine?

I did an interview recently for a programme exploring digital privacy and the future of technology. Not having a television or internet, I didn’t see it myself, but I was told that the programme’s revelations were astounding. They spoke to me about my experiences living without tech, and one of the first questions the presenter asked was: “Do you not get really bored?” I laughed, but it’s a question I get asked a lot.

Boredom – like loneliness, ecological illiteracy, the selfie, depression – is one of the more recent pandemics in mankind’s all-conquering march forward. Scientists are, of course, working on cures as we speak, but in the meantime symptoms can be treated with a tablet taken morning, noon and night. Prices start from £149.99 (WARNING: side effects may include: addiction, mass extinction of species, community breakdown and relationship problems).

To read the full version:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/series/life-without-technology/2017/mar/25/all