Why "Just Unplug" Is No Longer an Option

The advice is always the same. Worried about screen time? Just unplug. Concerned about social media's effects on your mental health? Delete the apps. Anxious about AI? Go offline. Take a digital detox. Return to the real world.

This advice assumes something that used to be true but isn't anymore: that the digital and the "real" are separate domains you can move between. That unplugging is like leaving a room. That the system ends where your device does.

It doesn't.

The Infrastructure Problem

Consider what happens when you "unplug." You put away your phone. Great. But your bank still runs on AI-driven systems. Your credit score is still calculated by algorithms. The traffic lights you drive through are still networked. The food in your grocery store was still stocked based on demand predictions. Your medical records are still processed by machine learning. The embedding is deeper than you think.

You can turn off your devices, but you can't turn off the infrastructure.

The digital isn't a separate place you visit through a screen. It's the operating system of modern life. It's woven into logistics, governance, finance, healthcare, transportation, energy grids, and supply chains. You're inside it even when you're not looking at it.

Tell me more about embedded cognition

The Social Problem

Even if you could disconnect from infrastructure, you can't disconnect from society. And society now assumes digital presence.

Try getting a job without an email address. Try renting an apartment without a credit history generated by algorithms. Try maintaining friendships when all the coordination happens on group chats. Try participating in democracy when the discourse happens on platforms you've abandoned.

The people who successfully "unplug" tend to be wealthy enough to pay for human intermediaries. They have assistants who answer emails, accountants who manage digital finances, staff who handle the interface with the technological world. For everyone else, opting out means opting out of basic social participation. This is creating new forms of inequality.

The Cognitive Problem

Here's the part that really troubles me. Even if you could physically disconnect, your cognition has already adapted. You've already outsourced memory to search engines. You've already trained yourself to expect instant information. You've already absorbed patterns of attention shaped by infinite scroll.

The changes aren't just behavioral. They're neural. The brain rewires itself based on how it's used. After years of smartphone use, your cognitive patterns have been physically altered. You don't return to some pre-digital baseline by putting away the device. The device has shaped the brain that's doing the putting away.

This isn't alarmist. It's just how neuroplasticity works. We're tool-using animals whose brains co-evolve with our tools. The question isn't whether technology changes us. It's what kind of changes we want and how we adapt to the ones we've already made.

The Privilege Problem

Digital detox is sold as self-care. Take a weekend at a cabin with no wifi. Do a screen-free retreat. Buy a dumb phone.

But notice who can afford this. Not the gig worker whose income depends on app notifications. Not the caregiver who needs to be reachable. Not the job seeker who has to respond to emails within hours. Not the student whose homework is submitted online.

The ability to "unplug" has become a luxury good. A marker of status. The knowledge workers who design addictive apps send their kids to Waldorf schools that ban screens. The executives who run tech companies take silent retreats. The asymmetry is intentional.

What Instead?

I'm not saying digital technology is good or bad. I'm saying individual disconnection isn't a solution. It's a fantasy that lets us avoid thinking about the actual problem: that our technological environment has been designed to capture attention and extract value, and we don't have meaningful collective control over its design.

"Just unplug" is like telling someone in a polluted city to "just stop breathing." It's technically possible, briefly, and it completely misses the point. The issue isn't individual behavior. It's systemic design.

What might actually help: regulation that limits attention capture. Business models that don't depend on engagement maximization. Design choices that respect cognitive autonomy. Collective bargaining over the terms of our technological environment.

These are hard. Political. Contested. Which is exactly why "just unplug" is so appealing. It turns a collective problem into an individual one. It makes the solution your responsibility. And it doesn't work.

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I still take breaks from screens. I still leave my phone in another room sometimes. I still value periods of low stimulation and sustained attention. These are good practices.

But I've stopped pretending they constitute opting out. There is no out. There's only different positions within. The question isn't whether to be part of the system. It's how to be part of it thoughtfully, and how to push for a system worth being part of.

The cabin with no wifi is lovely. But when you drive home, the algorithms are still running. Your data is still being processed. The machine is still learning. And you're still inside it, whether your phone is on or off.