What happened last night?

2025-02-18

Dear reader,

“Over here.” Something was calling out to me. “Read me!”

“Whaaaa?” I said out loud. You know how your phone pings you with “notifications”? It felt like that, but in my body. And wordless. Something was texting my consciousness, but more like a feeling, or a pull. It was coming from near my rocking chair, the one I feed the baby in. I looked over—no one there. I continued on my way to bed.

“Read me,” I heard again.

“That’s weird,” I thought. There’s a stack of books there. That’s no surprise—I’m a book lover. But I haven’t had much time to read. Mostly they’re good for leaning my phone against to watch video hands-free. I looked the stack up and down. Something about the book on the bottom—Uses of Plants for the Last 500 Years—got my notice.

“Open me—anywhere,” the book said. Before I knew it, curiosity grabbed me and sat me down. I set the book on my lap. At random, I landed on a page about Veratrum viride, or corn-lily. I read. At least five minutes passed this way, but it could have been longer. After a while I grew sleepy and went to bed.

What a weird experience—both spooky and cozy. The book didn’t vibrate. It didn’t beep. It didn’t light up. No reminders, no calendar invites, and no friend requests. I wondered how this obsolete stack of dead trees had spoken to me?

Something called me to this spot in the woods the other day. With no GPS…weird!

As I walked up to bed, though, I noticed more of what didn't happen while I read. I didn't subscribe to anything. I didn't enter my password. I didn’t re-enter my password, update my password, or pass a quiz about odd details of my past like the make of my first car. Reading didn’t require me to sign in or enable notifications. I wasn’t signed up for something I didn’t want, and I wasn’t signed out for inactivity. I didn't have to check my spam folder or overcome a paywall.

When I was done reading, I set the book down and went to bed. The book didn’t ask me to rate it, review it, or follow the author, Charlotte Erichsen-Brown. She didn't ask whether I liked the book, nor did she ask me to “like” it. I was offered no “free” gift. No promo code. No points. Nothing was “recommended for me.” I was not asked to save my credit card or auto-renew. The book did not respond to my voice command—nor did it seem to be eavesdropping on me in order to hear my voice command.

“Rude!” I thought at first. “Doesn’t it care that I exist?” But I found myself appreciating that it didn’t.

When I came down at about 6 a.m. the next morning with the baby I followed my usual habit— checking my notifications and putting my phone in my pocket. I carried Loie to the living room for tummy time while I stoked the fire.

And – by golly – the book was still there—perfectly intact and functional despite not being plugged in. I hadn’t charged it. It didn’t ask for our wifi. Sitting on my shelf for many years, it has never asked me to back it up, update it, or agree to new terms and conditions. Never has it scanned my fingerprints or my face. And again—something about all this made me want to spend more time with it. I brought the book back to Loie and I read out loud the passage from the night before.

It’s not like the “real world” out there stopped pinging me. I felt my phone vibrate several times, but I surprised myself by ignoring it. How could paper outperform lithium-ion? Likely you consider me a fool for trusting a book with my time.

Indeed, I felt giddy around Uses of Plants for the Last 500 Years. It started to grow on me, not for what it offered but for what it didn't offer. I could hold the baby and read a page, and know that a video would not pop up and start blaring at us. I didn't have to prove that I wasn't a robot, or that I was a human. The book never asked me to enter the last four of “my social.” I saw no ads – even for those diapers I once glanced at in Walgreen’s.

Free versus premium? Annual versus monthly? Silence. The book did not ask me to opt in or to opt out, and yet I felt I had all the options I wanted.

I’ll admit, the interactive features of Uses of Plants are nil. No spell check. No grammar check. No autofill. No AI “wizard.” No menu. No chat. No syncing with my toaster. No video feed from my doorbell. No share buttons. No warranty. No social media integration. No progress bar and no tracking—me of it or it of me. I supposed it did have a “bookmark” feature, if you count my dog-earing the page.

So much wasn’t happening that I was totally unable to multitask. Without the ride of the news cycle I grew bord. With no timeline, I felt untethered. With no newsfeed, hunger gnawed at me. The phone buzzed with a call, and I felt overcome with guilt. It was the doctor's office reminding me to check in on the app, and the nice robot had to leave a voicemail. I felt lonely. 

I resented Uses of Plants for the Last 500 Years for not spiking my dopamine. No boxes to check, no spinning circles, no filters. Nothing but one page after another of 9-point text and line drawings that did not swipe or zoom. Without being asked to identify photos with or without crosswalks, bicycles, or cars, I felt purposeless. Having gone several minutes without scanning my face to “verify that it’s me,” I lost touch with my online identity.

Even as I held the baby and read, I could feel my habits organizing a revolt. My fingers wanted to scroll, and began scratching toward my pocket. I thirsted for headlines. Give me some settings to toggle! Isn’t there a privacy policy to review? Couldn’t I at least check my credit score, authorize a bug report, or manage my storage?

The baby nodded off on my lap, trapping my phone in my pocket. What was I to do? I simply put the book down. I rocked and closed my eyes. I wondered where in my forest corn-lily grows and if I could identify some this spring. Don’t quote me on this without a fact-check, but I would almost say that the space left for my imagination felt richer than anything a billionaire could buy.

Speaking of one billionaire investor, Marc Andreeson’s early bet helped Facebook take off and grow into a company with 3.35 billion “active daily users.” He once said that the Internet would create two categories: “People who tell computers what to do, and people who are told by computers what to do.”

The whole “feeling pulled to read a book” thing started off pretty weird. But now, 15 days later, something’s changed in me. Phone? Email? I use them, but more like any other tool. When I need a shovel, I use it. The rest of the time it sits there.

You know what, Marc? Enjoy your silicon slavery. I quit.