https://medium.com/@zandercutt/imprisoned-d8579a843f80

Our generation — that of “millennials” — gets written about a lot. We are “better behaved and less hedonistic nowadays,” according to a recent article from The Economist. We also may have been “ruined by smartphones,” according to a well-read piece in The Atlantic that I, as a millennial, found hard to read, and because of that, compelling. There are other words used to describe us, too. “Isolated” is a common one. “Selfish” is another. “Smartphone-obsessed” is not a word, but someone should come up with a word for it, like “iPhoned,” or a name for the condition of smartphone addiction, like “deviciosis.” Either way, people love talking about our generation both because yes, to do so is to care about society’s health more broadly, but also because to lament the shortcomings of our generations is to normalize their own. And articles written about our generation get read, even more so if they’re dark, disparaging looks into the world we occupy. So here I am, a “selfish,” “isolated,” “iPhoned” millennial, writing another one.

To get to my broader point, there are a few smaller ones I need to make. Before I do that, though, I’ll spell out my broader point as succinctly as I can, so that you can see where I’m going as I get there. In broad strokes, it is this: millennials — our generation — are “better behaved and less hedonistic” because we have been pacified by the most effectively designed amalgamation of variable reward schedule-based systems ever to exist: smartphones. And as reluctant as I am to blame the iPhone, specifically, I feel I must; I have a genuine love affair with Apple, strengthened by how long I consciously spurned the advances of its ever-improving suite of products, and how absurd that spurning seems now, given my experience with them. I cannot fight the truth, however: the smartphone, and specifically, the iPhone — and the consortium of variable reward schedules buried within it — is the most effective tool of human censorship and pacification, ever.