Recently, I had a scare at work. My laptop was suddenly unable to access the Internet despite working fine the entire day.

A check with IT showed that the browser I was using, Arc, had somehow triggered the Falcon cybersecurity program, which promptly locked down my laptop despite the browser having worked fine for almost a year at that point.

While I thankfully had cleared out my video backlog before it happened (most of them pending approval, a couple ready to publish), I was unable to access the Internet both for research (and background music/videos for stimulation) and my blog drafts on Google Docs, so I ended up writing a fair bit of this post in Microsoft Word before it was resolved.

Amid my initial restlessness, I started to wonder about how the world we live in has become so hyper-connected that any inconvenience, as I found out, can cause major disruptions to our lifestyles.

A CATCH-22 SITUATION

Much has been said about the effects of digital tools like the Internet and social media on its users. Regardless of whether you do the finger-pointing or find yourself on the receiving end of someone else’s, we can all plead guilty to spending more time with devices than we’d like. If not doom scrolling, we’re putting aside healthy activities like sleep and going outside to finish a binge watch of a new Netflix series, or play one more round of, I don’t know, League of Legends.

Outside of leisure, the average worker is still interacting with digital devices for work. We often hear of how hard it is for Singaporeans to avoid working after official working hours, but even within those hours, we spend so much time looking at screens that there is plenty of documentation of health problems arising from looking at one thing (a screen in many cases) for hours on end.

“But… but we need to get work done to survive,” one might argue.

Truly a depressing realisation.

IS THERE REALLY NO HAPPINESS (WITHOUT DIGITAL DEVICES)?

There has been a resurgence of offline lifestyles, perhaps a pushback against the increased digitalisation of our lives during the COVID-19 pandemic. They can manifest as “digital detoxes” where practitioners abstain from technology completely for brief periods of time, as well as solutions like turning our existing smartphones into “dumb phones” to reduce device use to essential functions like communications (i.e. phone calls and messages). There is even “digital minimalism”, a term coined by American professor Cal Newport who promoted a process of deliberate engagement with technology in a book of the same title.

This was my second time seeing Porter Robinson in person, after the Singapore stop of the Nurture Live Asia Tour 2023. I thought that was one of my best nights of 2023, but the Smile World Tour turned out to be even better in terms of audience participation.

In the same vein, I attended Porter Robinson’s Smile World Tour (why can't I un-emoji my text?) at the Star Performing Arts Centre when he stopped by Singapore towards the end of November 2024. I took quite a fair bit of videos and photos as keepsakes, but since there’s always at least one person recording the entire show, I can’t help but feel I would’ve enjoyed myself even more than I already did if I kept my phone away more. The guy on my right sure had the time of his life though, singing his heart out to every word without shooting a single video.

Perhaps I should try putting down my phone more often. Videos are nice, but they’re not as good as the real thing.

~ Wei Feng

Cover image: Yazid N on Unsplash

Images from: Kev Costello on Unsplash, Myself