“The 1990s called and wants their Saturday back,” is how it started. Read ahead if you are interested in the blatherings of an anthropologist.

[This is not a post about catching a case of the Crafties, but rather a philosophical explanation for a practice that helps me create. I also wrote it in February and a few updates are added to the original. And full disclaimer: the last social media I was on was MySpace so I didn’t have those kind of problems to work through. Crafty post are coming, I promise. I have several written – it’s just a matter of taking photos!]

RKasper at Redbubble designed this.

An old joke from Boy, though obviously not of his creation, was to remark about how something/one called and wanted their thing back. I’d been hearing these from him for decades. So, when I wanted to name the thing, this phrase just fell in place.

Background

We’d been watching a not-so-good movie, but a particular scene caught my attention, and I had to pause it to unpack it. An older teen and her younger brother were home alone, in the 70s. He was in her room, hanging out, and she was on her bed doodling in a notebook. She was, of course, annoyed with him and wanted him to leave her alone, but regardless, they were passing the time together. And without the pressure to be productive, to be amazing artists, to show anyone their creations or how amazingly they spent their time. Yet they were productive – in growing her art skills little by little and in growing their relationship and connection through conversation. It was part childhood, but also part analog. That’s what struck me.

I had that analog experience. In fact, my generation is de facto the last to remember it. (I take issue with being categorized by the definition of a Millennial and instead opt for the Xennial grouping which fits much better with our life experiences. But I digress, as this contention could be a-whole-nother post!) Like all past years of a human life, of course this is part nostalgia. Nearly every generation will say their youths were better spent. But it is actually so much more than simply aging into a new decade and looking back fondly of the Before Times.

The internet was sold to us to be game-changing in a way that would point us straight to the path to a Star Trekkian utopia. Globalization would bring about so much wealth, health, diversity, and opportunity to every corner of the planet. People could organize on social platforms and overcome abusive regimes. Loneliness would be cured through the ability to stay connected.

But this all went wrong as man-children built platforms for personal profit while our as-yet-unaware society held them up as movers of nations, geniuses, and heroes. We did not know which laws to have in place, and their billions of dollars thwart attempts to self-correct the course we find ourselves on now. Whistleblowers and scientists publish more and more findings of the intentions of these players, who are knowingly stepping on the psyches of our children and ourselves, stealing our attention and ability to think for ourselves and sit with our own thoughts. And knowingly, I might add, spreading misinformation that is oh-so-more than aliens building pyramids, but enabling actual genocides.

And the public is growing aware, yes? We tolerate our intimates paying more attention to their phone than their real life as commonly as we breathe air. We make jokes about how addicted we are ourselves to this technology. Doom scrolling. Wasting time surfing the web. We even binge watch tv all weekend without a thought, until Monday and we feel unrested and unwilling to return to work. We worry about the children. We know we are not okay.

We tell ourselves we can’t help it. We’re actually addicted, the same as any other kind of addiction. The pull of technology is too strong. We can’t live in a modern society with less of it. FOMO. But I disagree to all but perhaps the actual addiction issue, and even that does not leave us helpless. Has no one in history ever overcome their addiction? And I’ll warrant that medical science is on my side that mental (behavioral) addictions, psychosomatic or not, are much easier to overcome than physical dependencies on actual chemical inputs. Not to mention that if certain behaviors become uncool in group settings, an individual’s motivation and ability to change generally increases.

I realized I had been waiting for life to change, for policies to be made, or for me to come to terms with it all … not exactly sure what I was waiting for, but I wasn’t taking responsibility. And that’s what clicked. It’s MY phone (the ultimate villain of the story), and I’ll use it any damn way I please. Perhaps that means using it less or even not at all!

The Philosophy

The 1990s Called … is a call (pun intended) to assess what works and what doesn’t for you as an individual in terms of modern technology. The point lies in the ethos of the mindset: Humans evolved to be the tool user, not the tool.

My anthropological questions are: What has modern technology displaced that we are unaware of? What happens when we find ourselves in a state of true boredom, after having passed through the antithetical of the “runner’s high” and calmed down from fretting? What stresses us out now because we don’t have time for it, but wouldn’t have stressed us out if we weren’t pre-loaded to be anxious or having wasted time from being online? What do we think about when given the space to think for ourselves rather than being told what is important through media? What values would bubble up to the surface if we weren’t being led by promotional campaigns? What do we actually care about? How would we actually spend our time? What skills might we develop? What relationships? What would society look like if we didn’t allow billionaires to lead us for their own profit?

The Behavior

It’s tricky out there, since we are bombarded by all types of media to steal our attention. We have a primate mind, geared to care about status, about raising our status in the eyes of others. Part of that status comes from not missing out on the latest trends or political conversations. We have primate eyes, so visuals are everything to capture our focus. What to do?

Go back in time, to the days before modern technology had its grips on you. You remember this life, you lived it, you survived it, and you can bring components of it through time to the present. Younger folk can’t know this first-hand, but they have heard our stories, or seen them in shows and movies. You can do your part to help them find their own way. Lead by example.

I am not saying throw away all technology. It has its place and is only the building block of what’s to come (hopefully something better, as we come to grips with its power). I am only saying that you needn’t have the technology at your fingertips 24/7. You aren’t going to die and disappear without it. But you will regain something of yourself. We first chose every Saturday to dip back to the 90s. Then, we extended that to include Sundays as well. Now, I do it as much as I can because I love it so much.

• Step One: Make your smart phone less interesting. A student at work tipped me off to this trick. I have attached an Accessibility > Color Filter (Grey Scale) to a triple click. My phone is almost always in black & white (not just when I am “in the 90s”), and I really only temporarily change it if someone sends me a photo. At first, yes, I’d forget to revert it, but now when I see my phone in color, it shocks me as if I put too much sugar in my mouth. A true visceral sensation. Super weird! I have an iPhone so I can’t give directions for other brands, but you can find it online, no doubt. Check for something like Settings > Accessibility > Accessibility Shortcut > Color Filters.
• Step Two: Make your smart phone your tool, not the other way around.
  • A: I use a Focus filter that automatically comes on over the weekends, but you could just as easily flip it on and off as you find the time to do so. Settings > Focus > + > Custom > (I named mine “1990s called”). I allow notifications from only those things that are MY tools, not the things that *I* am the tool of. For me, that means only my calendar, Libby library app, and MyRadarPro. Note that I do not allow notifications from anything else (except Time Sensitive notifications and all calls), including text messages! I have also customized the screen so it visually looks different and serves me as a reminder to stay true to my desire to be the tool user, and not the used.
  • B: Sometimes, sure, you need to access something, or perhaps your addiction gets the better of you and you just have to pop on and check something. I added a second layer of protection to remind myself that I am suppose to be adhering to the 90s ethos – when my stable mind made this decision for me, not when my addiction-withdrawal need was in the driver seat. Settings > Screen Time > App Limits > Add Limit. I set the time restriction to be both Saturday and Sunday, but if you don’t want to or can’t manage a recurring schedule, you can also flip this on and off. On my 90s days, I am allowed a single minute (because I could not specify days by selecting 0) on all apps except those where I am the tool user (my list can’t possibly match yours, but items such as Kindle or Noisli remain accessible).
  • C: Change your home screen. I rearranged everything on my phone so that there were barriers in place to things that wasted my time. This is true 24/7, not just on my 90s days.
    • 1: My homescreen only has my most-used tools (as noted above) on it. Just because 4 things fit across the bottom doesn’t mean I have to use all four!
    • 2: My widgits screen is likewise paired down (4 things only), with a Note. Here, I will add things I want to remember to look up later, on my not 90s day. Surprisingly, I never actually care to go back and google these. Turns out one of the lessons I learned is that I don’t need to google every passing thought in my head – they are in fact meant to be just that – passing! Update: I don’t have this note anymore, and I never feel compelled to jot down something to google later – I just realized I never care enough actually.
    • 3: Swiping the other direction from home are folders, and I buried the worst time-sinks at the very end of each folder. For me, this is really just my web browser. Yes, yes, I can swipe down and type it in and instantly be there – but that isn’t a behavior of mine so instead I have the few added milliseconds of swiping off the home screen, clicking the folder, swiping through those pages to reach the browser. This helps my brain say “wait, is this actually important?” and gives me a chance to abandon the idea in the first place. Update: I transformed this last point by removing Safari totally from my phone and instead using only Firefox Focus – and I have to swipe and type as it is removed from the home screen. This adds that extra “are you sure you want to?” pause usually required. My Firefox Focus doesn’t let me open multiple tabs, doesn’t let me easily share a link, and doesn’t remember where I was the next time I open it. I have to decide I want to leave the page I’m on and actually click that link. I have to decide if sharing that thing is actually worth doing or if I’d rather just chat about it later or not pass it on at all. I don’t get sidetracked the next time I open it, and … now I almost never open it. I also have all major news sites blocked (under Settings > Screen Time > Content & Privacy > App Store, Media, Web & Games > Web Content > Never Allow … and enter your vice here). Quasi-unrelated, I also changed the search platform from using Google to using DuckDuck Go. Boy will tell me I still have a lot to give up, but I am trying to support companies that don’t enshittify themselves to turn my life into a struggle while they make a buck. If not now, then when?
    • Update 4: I discovered most of what I intentionally used the internet for started out with something Wikipedia could tell me, so I got the wikipedia app and start there. The other thing I often used the internet for with intention was to look up definitions of words. Yep, I downloaded a dictionary app.
• Step Three: Use only 1990s technologies (with certain allowances). What was my life back then, I wondered. Then, I executed the plan.
  • I read a lot of books in the 90s. I use a kindle now. (A color kindle, now, actually! Wow!)
  • I listened to a lot of CDs in the 90s. I use Apple Music now.
  • I did not watch a lot of TV because for my age group, there wasn’t a lot of TV geared towards me. That will be different for you older folk, but I imagine it was a rare person who watched tv all weekend long in the 90s anyway. The stuff just wasn’t that good! Or it was on in the background while other things were being done. Ergo, I do NOT use any streaming services for shows. TV is banned. I cancelled all services this year and haven’t even once regretted it – I did wait, I’ll admit, several months of taking the 90s into practice…but in those months, I had literally been wasting my money because I never watched anything!
  • I did occasionally see a movie or rent one from Blockbuster. These took careful consideration to make the right choices. If I have a specific movie in mind that I would like to watch, I will allow it – the watching will be a Thing, at a specific time (to prevent any “on the whim” boredom reactions) requiring the respect movies use to garner. They are not “just a longer TV show” and I will not watch more than one a day (though usually zero). They will have my focus and for that, I will appreciate them all the more. And this requires me to see what’s playing in the theatres, or to see who has a dvd to borrow, etc.
  • I still call them “Books on Tape”, so yes, audiobooks are allowed!
  • We had maps, but not step-by-step routes that recalculated. Sometimes, getting lost is part of the fun! Granted, I don’t do this one a lot. But I have tried it several times when being on time isn’t crucial, and it’s not nearly as frazzling as one might think. And I do find cool things!
  • No texting! We’ve been slowly getting the word out that we “go dark” on the weekends. If we need to ask a question, we will call instead, and our social circle knows they must to do the same to reach us. This was something that got displaced – real connections. A text lets you ask a quick question, get a short response. A call will provoke longer, deeper conversations – about your question and so much more. Easily an hour or more can go by, all in the good work of connecting. Update: I’ve been slacking on this one quite a bit, but writing this post will help me remember: pick up the phone! But also, I think I threw this one in here because a text led to the phone in my hand which meant the temptation to keep it there with my primate eyes on it. Since all these steps worked together, my phone is still my tool. I’m in control and I don’t accidentally find out I lost thirty minutes of my life after a single simple text exchange.
  • Technically video games existed, though in a different form. This is a tricky one for us, and Boy hasn’t landed on a very good model yet for himself. For me, it means no game that is designed to addict you to months of play time. Also, if it is a co-op game, we should be playing them in person, not across the internet. It’s fuzzy for us at this point, yet. Update It’s less hard for me since I rarely play in lieu of reading or crafting. I think any game would be fine for me because I’d be moderate about it. For Boy, it’s his only real escape from work, and he’s almost always playing with friends so I think it’s unnecessary now for us. It did help us, though, determine the ways we wanted to spend our time by blocking out all avenues of risk – which is what this experiment was all about anyway!
  • My 90s days are geared toward my hobbies, which are artful. As such, sometimes I need to research a technique online or use Adobe to try out an arrangement. I allow both of these uses because the other options are time-taking to the extent that my short weekends will be lost to driving to and perusing libraries or drawing and redrawing layouts, which also wastes paper (something I don’t enjoy). I only do this on my laptop at my desk, because it is less likely I will get sidetracked and spend too much time while sitting at a desk as opposed to lounging on a couch. The laptop is my tool, not the other way around! Update: Pretty good here, except now I have noticed that the computer is “free time” so I might as well google that news list and read some headlines. Ok, I’ll work on that the next time I sit down at it!

Lessons Learned Thus Far

1. I am the tool user, not the tool.
2. I do not need to google every thought that passes through my head.
3. I do not need to spend my empathy on things I cannot affect. (This does not mean I don’t care; it’s just ok to not go searching for more of the same bad news.)
4. I can hold a phone conversation, even through awkward silences.
5. I have gained my focus and my memory back in ways I couldn’t have imagined possible. (I crave reading, ya’ll. Not since 2009 have I felt that – I can date it because I recall sitting by my niece’s crib being the last time I felt the craving. I can ((and do!!)) read for hours. I remember things. So. Many. Things. Without lists, even! It’s incredible.)
6. A fireplace on the tv (thank you, Netflix options) worked to soothe my searching visual brain when I still had it. Now? I look out the window. Shocking!
7. Music helps entertain the need for auditory stimulus. I often play solo piano (Michele McLaughlin‘s Perseverance took me on this journey).
8. A candle feeds the ambiance further. A cup of fancy tea. Whatever rituals you may need to make the 90s feel special and removed from the rest of your life.
9. The 90s feels like a mini vacation. Update: And now a lifestyle!
10. It’s not as hard as you think. !!

Final Thought

Not everyone has the ability or desire to do these things, and I’m not judging you at all. I would just ask if you are being both real and kind to yourself. Science is showing that on average, our use of modern technology is harmful. What are you doing about it?

Closing Shout Outs

I got here through self-determination and was further motivated by a couple of sources, listed in alphabetical order here: Cain’s Quiet, Carr’s The Shallows, Duhigg’s The Power of Habit, Fisher’s Chaos Machine, Galloway’s The Four, Haidt’s Anxious Generation, Hari’s Stolen Focus, Keltner’s Awe, Swisher’s Burn Book, and several about hermits or camping or being in nature. I could have added some others about the evil sins of tech companies but this gives you the idea. I was sick of feeling like a tool whose very existence made someone else a profit, and that profit seemed to only keep making my existence more and more troubled. How rude. I mean can you even imagine the loss of human productivity – real and meaningful personal and communal productivity and progress! – that these early years of the Technological Age has caused for all of humanity? Anyway, if you like this little reading list, there’s always my book list to see what else you may enjoy. If you think I’m a dullard, “fui quod es, eris quod sum”.